vi. Tricks, Treats, and Traitors

Wallace: The Founders hadn't made Council Hall easy to find. It wasn't a secret, exactly; anyone their side of the veil could, if they asked the right questions of the right person, or even a friend of a friend of a cousin of a half brother of the right person. Meetings are open to the supernatural public, after all. Still, precautions had been taken. Smack dab in the middle of the oldest street in London's oldest open-air market there stood a statue that had stood there for centuries: a great, oiled-bronze lion. Its gold-green shine spoke only of its make-up to most, but from the correct point of view -- and wouldn't you know it, the view required a certain seat at a certain table under a certain window while sipping a certain blend of tea at Clary's in the Market -- a person blessed with what nearby Berkshire natives called the sight would spy a series of runes glowing gold in the reclining beast's mane. A name was required to get past the protective spellwork. It was a name that had been on the tongues of Feins and Norths most recently, neither of which were families initially associated with its choosing. Lily. (d)


Don: There were two routes available to a thing trying to break through a barrier, ward, or puzzle they didn't have the answer to, once was overwhelming power the other patience. Abaddon had both, but he wanted his presence to remain unseen, he wanted to be in the backdrop, hidden in the shadow of the world. And breaking barriers and shieldings with overwhelming cannibalistic magic would have surely drawn attention. With ears and eyes from shadows that lacked both it was inevitable that the 'password' would have been caught by the eavesdropping black. Whispered secrets shared to the monster that was unsure of exactly what needed to be done about this Council. Alice seemed... worried... that they would somehow be an obstacle or troublesome to the world they wanted to build. And in the ancient wizard's experience Councils an organizations that aimed to control, protect they would say, were nothing more than a nuisance. There were enough laws in the world, natural and magical both, and those should have been more than enough to abide. But some things thought there should be more, and they were the true defilers--disguising their abominable acts by preaching: right and moral. There was no right. There was no moral. "Lily." Murmured the man as he passed warded statue and the sleek physique of black-suited man stepped on past to the building. Cut of beard looked more black beneath the brim of black fedora, sunglasses, and matching black suit. Even the undershirt and tie were of the ebony hues. Inked hands too wore leather in hueless onyx. Left hand clasped the hand of a a girl in a white dress, golden headed curls spilling down her sleek shoulders and she wore a Guy Fawkes mask. Halloween was not nearly as celebrated in England as it was in the Americas, but the child conveyed plastic orange bucket in the face of Jack-o-Latern. Anyone with the eye for magic would have seen it pouring off in droves from the demon thing that walked hand-in-hand with the man in black.



Wallace: Lily. At once, Portobello Road began to crumble all around Abaddon and his guest. Buildings aged and ruined in minutes, sending illusory brick and mortar tumbling into cobblestone streets that became pebble paths that became gravel walkways that became sandy beaches in the middle of metropolitania, and finally, those dissolved, too; like instant coffee in hot water. Coffee's color was what was left, after that, sprawling out into well-maintained hardwood floors that were easily a third Abaddon's age. The floor rumbled, like it always rumbled, and walls erupted from it, shooting two, three stories into the air. Staircases rose up like stop-animation dominos viewed from one side to connect those stories. Piece by piece, the Council Hall came together in a flurry of magic that transcended age: empty. Empty, because there was no meeting scheduled at present. In fact, noone should have been there. Noone but Wallace, the groundskeeper, anyhow. Wallace was not a tall man. He was five and seven at best, with stringy, shoulder-length hair that should have gone salt and pepper years ago, bushy eyebrows and poor oral health. There was a hump to his back and a hitch in his giddy-up, but away he whistled, pushing a polish rag over one of many wooden pews. A large pedestal loomed over all at the front of the room, dotted by a visually unimpressive flame. Its aura, however, was endless. It was every color at once and no color at all; neither light nor dark. It smelled like the wind, it spoke like the sea, it sang like the Earth. Everything and nothing, burning bright for no practical reason at all except that maybe Wallace liked to be able to see what he was working at. The groundskeeper's work halted with Abaddon's arrival. He blinked at the old wizard and his trick-or-treater. "May I 'elp yeh, sir?" Cockney, at best, aged by the smoke from a pipe. (d)



Don: When he first became a monster, he was such a frightening thing. Horrifying, truly. And brutal. Savage. He burned so brightly that all the world came to extinguish him, and it nearly destroyed him entirely. That was a long time ago, and a lesson was learned, to hide what you are. Hide everything, but still stay true to the laws of nature. The rules of karma. There was so little flesh of the wizard to be seen, his cheekbones and cheeks, lips that cut into that bone-chilling grin. Nefarious intentions were obvious in the tickle at the spine, even the picture of the duo probably was a little more than peculiar. Especially being in a place they didn't belong. Abaddon didn't say a word, but instead lurched an arm forward and the little girl took a step forward. Locks bounced and she skipped in ghoulish girl fashion from the dark master towards the hunchbacked thing. "Go on." The murmur of honey-soaked baritone murmured to the girl thing, and not the man. Eyes beneath the shade of glasses switched to the older man behind the reflective and dimming surface. The tiny girl that wandered up holding up her bucket when she was a good five feet away. Rail thin arm, no longer than a foot and a half, swung out the bucket and it swung wildly side to side with the quick motion. The plastic muffled voice stolen from a child murmured in sing-song quality. "Trick or treat, please!" Curtsy was added by the barefoot thing. The shadows grew colder, thicker, condensing and gathering in the deepest corners. The places farthest from the light. He followed in the wake of the skipping girl, a much slower procession from the man dressed in mourning with cryptic mirth forever advertised on sharpened features.



Wallace: Bones were chilled and a spine was tickled, but old Wallace, you see, is a simpleton. He'd served the Council Hall since its inception, somehow; the first to be chosen by the Flame. He predated even the First Six. Loyalty was the why of it. The man was unflinchingly loyal. It was the only thing he was proud of, aside from the shine of that empty Hall, and it was the singular quality that most would remark on if asked about him. Never a 'oh, that Wallace, isn't he clever' or 'oh, that Wallace, isn't he handsome.' No. Wallace was loyal. He was also kind, though that was a well-kept secret only children whispered about. Abaddon and the chills and tingles he brought with him were relegated to the background as the angel ghoul skipped into the fore, and Wallace, well, he couldn't help a chuckle. He straightened up as best he could, leaving his polish rag folded over the back of the pew in front of him. "Well, now, young miss," he crowed. "All Hallow's ain't fer a week, yet! Your da's brought yeh too early." Chapped hands shoved their way into the pockets of dingy blue coveralls. "Lessee... lessee, here, if ol' Wally's got any treats left, hm? Might be I already gave 'em to all the other little children come before yeh with too-early-das and mums." Dig. Rummage. Shift. His eyes went wiley, alight with the kind of glee that only grandfathers are capable of, and both his hands were pulled from his pockets so that he could hold two closed fists out. "Which'll y'have, then? There's a trick in one and a treat in the other, so take care that y'pick well." (d)



Don: Footfalls fell with impossibly quiet steps, not even hushed, it was as if he stepped on a level of air. Like he wasn't even there. He wasn't absolutely void of sound though, the leather squealed when hands clamped together in front of his groin, head bowing down cautiously in feint of prayer. The little girl's bucket swung wildly again and the hidden 'cherubic' face angled itself to push white-mask at the hobbled elderly man. "Noooooo. That's not how it works!" And she stomped, a reflection of what it had seen from the Alice girl. Creature's bucket swung again. "It's my turn for a treat!" She squealed. The sharp sting of girl's voice followed by the soothing nature of wolf's whisper. "... how long has it been?" Question seemed to be provided in the same method his body was bent into, a prayer, sent on a stringer to be caught and responded by anyone and no one. The little girl didn't seem to think it was meant for her, she paid no mind to the one she was beholden to. The twisting strings of black tacky energy coiled around the aura of demonic entity that was bristling at the man that bid her to choose. She refused.



Wallace: Well, goodness -- that was a new one. What lil' thing didn't like to play this game? Both of his bushy brows came up along the wrinkle of his forehead. He made a small sound from somewhere in his throat a bit like a ``huh``, and took a peek from the masked girl and up to her da who spoke so quietly. Odd looking bloke, that one, but Wallace here had seen so much in his time with the Council he'd long ago stopped wondering on the look of folks. "Right, right, yer turn fer a'treat, then. But ye've got t'give me a trick fer it, after all, that's how it's come about. Trick or treat -- trick for treat!" He chortled some with his own joke, old bones stiff when he leaned in some; age-spotted and thick veined fists still held out for the girl. -d-



Don: The corners seemed to writhe, the darkness infused with life from the corner of the eye, but the moment gaze fell directly to the black it all stopped. Eyes of pure red blinked beneath the Guy Fawkes grin of white, matching the cut of bearded grin that the girl's 'guardian' wore. The gutteral sound of honey churned thick, each bite of his words taking air out of the room. "You heard the man. Show him a trick." And thick tendrils of muscle and sinew excreted from the most bitter points of the room, closest to the elderly man. The lights shuddered and strobed, flickering with the intense pressure of rising auras--infernal in nature. Shadow bit colder than ice when it caught wrists in bindings thick as rope, but threads of shadow began to withdraw and twisted like wire about the man's limbs. Ankles were bound together in a sharp grapple and the carpet was yanked out from under his feet. The blackness ripping him up and out so he was tossed upon a sofa of air, held in mid-air by taut black. Suspended man left to hang and the girl thing pranced and pounced. Light as a feather as she landed on his gut, thin limbs straddling the waist and white fingers that were now tipped in black bladed nails tore open the front of the man's shirts. The girl's right hand peeling mask off and throwing it aside to show the horrific facade beneath. Eyes were bloodred, a noseless face that had only smooth slits and a maw of piranha teeth that seemed to be three rows on top and bottom, jagged little hooked teeth that glistened with saliva that dripped and burned through the clothing and skin that was dribbled upon. Tips of nails carving runes and glyphs into the man's chest. <done>



Wallace: Black like spots seemed to drift into the corner of his eyes, but were gone every time he looked. Unease began to stab into his spine like a hot poker, and the man straightened. The girl's da spoke again, and this time it was like a trigger had been pulled. There was all sorts happening, things he couldn't focus on all at once. "Just what's the meanin' o'this?," he shouted when the lights began to go haywire -- and a cry of surprise left him when he found himself taken by ankles and wrists. How he ended up prone and bound onto nothing, he wouldn't understand. His Council cast for good, not for whatever this was. "They'll not stand fer it, they won't -- Unhand me now, and all will be forgo--" He wasn't able to finish. The girl pounced, landed on him with all her feather light weight, and with horrified eyes he watched her begin her trick. Pulling the mask from what should have been an adorable plump cheeked angel face, and revealing a monster beneath. "What .. what .. No! No!" Wallace began to struggle, to no avail, against the shadow binds that held him; unable to tear his gaze from the creature. Saliva burned, her talons dug, and Wallace screamed. -d-



Don: "I would be cruel if I didn't tell you fighting only makes it hurt more." Abaddon spoke again, but turned his back to the scene to stare off at the flame who's magic burned thick in the room. He crinkled his nose while he heard the sound of skin peeled from body and the moans extracted from the soon to be host to the parasitic demon grazing on the blood that dribbled out. "Don't worry though, this is all temporary. You won't be haunted by this night." The voice of the madman could be heard, but where he was exactly unrecognizable. The hellish symbols carved into skin seeped red and the shadows completely wrapped about the man, prepared as the spider's next meal as arms and legs were entirely bound in thin spun shadow. The claws of the creature digging now for the man's mouth, curling tips into the corners, sliding thumbs into his mouth on the outside of teeth and jabbed into cheeks. Gaping maw spreading wide red lips and the girl's own tongue speared out in a forked design. And long. Stretching out across the short distance from her mouth to his, the tip of it driving into his teeth and boring through the white. Spearing through like acid and melting the man's mouth if it had to. Abaddon turned his back and stared down the way they had come. "... I should also tell you that it hurts either way." He mumbled and then heard the sound of skin torn and bones snapped, the man's jaw broken in half as the demon creature began to crawl its way into the man's mouth. A gap that was forced larger and larger, physically torn apart as the girl seemed to ooze through and into her. It wouldn't be long until he blacked out, but it would be quite awhile till he awoke... asleep on the floor. A foggy recollection of visitors, but nothing else. The whole event a nightmarish thing that only glimpses of could be recalled, and a sinking feeling in the pit of his gut as if he wasn't alone. <done>