Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And there! Ta-daaaa!” Rocky held up a cracked hand mirror for his cousin to admire his handiwork. He announced proudly, “The very image of a modern day gentleman!”

Freckle blinked at his reflection owlishly. The only significant change Rocky had added was the fake, thick bushy white mustache glued to his top lip. It was scratchy, making him wrinkle his nose. 

  “I feel silly,” he said, ears folding back.

  “I feel manly!” Ivy said brightly from her side of the room, also sporting her own stash. It matched her fur color and she’d taken care to style it, the ends curling up in small spirals. She deepened her voice, puffed out her chest, and stood with her legs apart and hands on her hips, “What ho fellow men! Shall we having an exhilarating row of boxing and then engage in a friendly game of cards and gambling while seeing who can hold their liquor the longest?” 

 Freckle leveled a flat look at her, “Men don’t talk like that.”

  “They do too Freckle. I heard it all the time in the speakeasy and with my dad’s friends.” 

  “My co-conspirators, I do believe we are ready,” Rocky said, satisfied with Freckle’s new look and his own. He had glued to his face a black mustache and a goatee, both somehow thicker than his own blocky eyebrows. He grinned triumphantly, his longer incisors peeking out from beneath the bush. “These disguises are fool proof! We’re sure to infiltrate the convention flawlessly tonight! And all their secrets will be ours for the exploitation!”

An hour later, the intrepid trio waltzed right up to the back door of the hotel holding the mysterious convention. Ivy, dressed to look more boyish, even tying up her hair under her cap, was thrilled at the chance to practice her lock picking skills she’d learned from Mordecai. 

  “Why are we doing this again?” Freckle asked, feeling queasier by the minute. At least they’d left the tommy in the Struggle Buggy. It meant Rocky didn’t expect them to need it. 

  “It’s a secret meeting by a private club, dear cousin. And secret clubs need refreshments. Most often of the secret kind,” Rocky explained with a wink and a nudge.

  “How is it secret? They advertised on the marquee, ‘Welcome members of S.E.A.L’”

  “True, but nobody knows who they are or what they do. And that can only mean one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Rival bootleggers!” He exclaimed with a flourishing sweep of his arms.

Freckle wasn’t so sure about that. However, his curiosity was piqued. When Ivy finally got the door open on her fifth attempt, he went along inside with the other two. 

A small diversion with a runaway luggage cart got them into the meeting hall without needing to provide tickets. The room was about what one would expect. The guests sat in neat rows of cushioned chairs all facing the front towards a stage with a podium. There was a pull-down screen and a slide show projector set up. The trio didn’t have to wait long before the seats were filled, and a man wearing a hotel uniform stepped on stage announcing the beginning of the meeting of S.E.A.L, and welcoming their President, all the way from Australia. 

  “Thank you Chiles.” A man wearing round dark glasses under a slick top hat and wearing a suit stepped up to the podium. Many of the guests stood up to cheer as they applauded. The man had up his hands. They all quieted instantly.

“Thank you, my brethren. It’s good to be here. Now, are the doors locked and bolted?” 

 Someone called from the back,“Locked and bolted Sir!”

  “Excellent. Gentleman, Ladies, you may remove your disguises.” 

The three were confused. Until the man reached up and took his glasses, hat, and his ears off his head. The face revealed was not that of a cat. The muzzle was too narrow, his real ears were two little round things sprouting from the sides of his smooth skull, and his eyes were just pitch black round orbs. Around them people were doing the same, revealing similar strange faces. Some of the women even took off their hair — wigs! 

The man on stage then removed the top half of his suit. Freckle felt a horrified shout building in his throat. Ivy and Rocky were both quick to slap their hands over his mouth, even as they squirmed in their seats too. They were chickens in a fox den. 

All the man’s limbs were mechanical, operated by a blubbery creature with flippers inside. 

  “Right. That feels much better don’t it? Now let’s get started.” He clapped his flippers twice. Rocky was reminded of a trained seal from his circus days. Except that one never spoke— at least, he’d never heard it speak. The lights were dimmed (thankfully providing the trio with some cover) and the projector clicked on, showing the first slide of the presentation.

“I hereby call to order the fiftieth annual meeting of the Sea mammals for the Extinction of All felines League! S.E.A.L for short.” 

The audience thundered their applause with clapping flippers.

Chapter Text

Listening to Wick chatter, showing her his home collection of relics, was a chore Mitzi had to endure to maintain a good relationship with the man (and check if he’d noticed any suspicious withdrawals from his bank account recently). Finally, after about a half an hour of his droning on about his assortment of colonial flintlocks, he left her to fetch some drinks for them both. Mitzi could gravitate towards items she was actually interested in. This tapestry on the wall, for example. 

It was a large piece of embroidered cloth, stretching almost completely from floor to ceiling. Mitzi had no way of knowing exactly how old it was, though the central figure was a woman wearing what she would describe as medieval type clothing. 

This woman was a queen. Mitzi could feel it. A queen wrapped in the finest violet silks, adorned with gold and jewelry. Her eyes were bright amethysts that seemed to shine despite the wear of the cloth. Mitzi felt a kinship with this woman. A lady of power and elegance, now alone and forgotten, left to collect dust. Fading away a little more every day. 

The eyes pulled her in. Mitzi stepped close. She gently touched the pads of her fingers to the woven woman’s hand. For a moment, she wanted to be that woman more than anything else in the world, her prestige restored to its former glory. The amethyst eyes were looking at her, as though they understood. 

Then, the moment was over. Mitzi was only a bereaved widow standing in a room filled with stuffy antiques that belonged to a wealthy, affable man she wasn’t sure she loved or not. She lowered her gaze with a sigh, drawing away.

A hand reached out from the tapestry, seizing Mitzi’s wrist tightly.  

It didn’t let go. 

  “Mitzi?” Wick called out.

But the room was empty. The only sound was his footsteps across the hard wood floor as he searched for his guest, a glass of sherry in each hand. Wick’s brow furrowed with confusion as he frowned. He was lamenting on the possibility of enlisting his staff to sweep the manse for her when he caught sight of the woman in the tapestry. And then looked again.  

Both glasses slipped from his grasp and shattered on the ground as he stood in shock.

The original woman was gone. In her place was the woven image of Mitzi. 

Chapter Text

Gunfire erupted, shattering the quiet of the Missouri night. 

  “Holy Simoleons!” Ivy cried, ducking behind the car for cover, her tail rigid and bushing with fright. 

The noise ceased as quickly as it had come. After a few seconds, Ivy peeked her head out to see what had caused the commotion. She saw Freckle standing stiffly, his shoulders heaving as he breathed, the tommy gun in his hands still pointed at a figure lying on the ground. Rocky, looking rather unbothered by it all, was poking the fresh cadaver with the toe of his shoe. 

“What happened?” She called out as she approached, eyes trained on the body. A feeling of nauseous dread settled in her stomach. 

She managed to tear her gaze away long enough to see that Freckle was still coming out of whatever-  whatever it was that came over him when he fired a gun. Not ready to speak yet. Rocky only shrugged. 

  “It’s a mystery we shall never know the answer to I’m afraid Miss Pepper. Our odd friend here emerged from the thicket over yonder and approached us menacingly. We had no choice but to defend ourselves.” 

  “But he doesn’t have a gun on him,” she observed with a frown. 

Nor did he appear to have the tell-tale Marigold blossom pinned to his lapel. It was a relief their victim wasn't another member of the rival gang. They got enough trouble from them already. That said, Ivy felt a pit of despair at the idea of gunning down an innocent person who only happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

  “You didn't see it Miss Pepper,” Rocky countered, gesturing wildly. “He never spoke, he hissed and he groaned in a wretched rasping sort of, hhrggg! Reaching his claws out for us! He meant us harm, to be sure.”

  “Yeah…” Freckle suddenly found his voice. “Yeah, I’m with Rocky on this. There was something wrong with this guy.” 

Ivy bit her lip, furrowing her brow. It still didn’t sound like reason enough to kill the poor man, but what’s done is done. She pushed her guilt aside. Adding this man to the pile of things that weighed upon her conscience periodically.

  “Ug, alright, just, let’s go already. Everything’s loaded up.” She turned to head back to the car. 

  “Wait- wait just a moment,” Rocky said, peering down at the man with newfound interest. He squatted down, laying hands on the man’s face. Rocky’s expression grew excited as he grinned. “Ah-ha! We’ve struck gold!” 

  “What?” Freckle took a step back, ears flattening against his head. He sensed another bad idea hatching in his cousin’s brain. 

  “Come see for yourself Cousin,” Rocky eagerly waved him over. Against his better judgment, Freckle obliged. Ivy opted to watch them from a distance.

The orange tabby swallowed back his vexation at seeing the dead man up close. The bullet holes in his chest were fresh and glistening with wetness. Freckle guessed the man was probably homeless, judging by the poor, dirtied state of his clothes, and how thin he was. He was practically a skeleton. Maybe he’d somehow escaped from a sanatorium. It would explain the strange behavior. 

Rocky’s patience ran out. He stood up, grabbed Freckle by his coat and pulled him back down, bringing his cousin to his knees. He pointed at the dead man’s mouth. 

“See? Gold!” 

Indeed, shining dimly in the moonlight, Freckle saw a few gold crowns amongst the yellowed teeth. He wanted to throw up. 

  “You can’t be serious!” Freckle spat. 

  “To the victor go the spoils Freckle,” Rocky waggled his thick eyebrows. “Miss Pepper, bring us some pliers!” 

  “We don’t have any,” she called back, crossing her arms with a huff. 

  “Oh.” He looked down at the man for moment, then back to her. “Wire cutters then?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. 

  “A screwdriver? A wrench? Anything really would do.” 

  “We keep all the tools in the garage remember? Viktor won’t let us take them with us because he’s afraid you’ll loose them.” 

Rocky scowled at the mention of the big Slovak. 

  “Alright then. Elbow grease it is.”

Without further ado, he stuck his hand in the mouth and started trying to dislodge a crown from the jaws of a murdered man. The other two watched in uneasy silence as the grey tabbed yanked and twisted for a minute or two before giving up. As he was recovering, his eyes wandered to his cousin. 

A sly smile crept across his face, “Freckle~” 

  “No!” 

  “It’ll be easy! You’ve surely got the muscles for this. I even loosened one up for ya.”

  “Rocky, we got the booze. That’s all we were sent out here to get. Please can we just go?”

  “Miss M. needs this Freckle! She needs every dime we can scrounge for her. And you would turn away gold ripe for the plucking? Leave such a valuable commodity behind in the dirt for some other vagabond to find? Please, Freckle, I implore you, think of your dear mother! Think of how happy she’ll be when you finally bring back a paycheck!” He begged. 

Freckle could never turn down his cousin when he begged. And bringing home some money to his aging mother would make her proud.

  “…Okay,” he said softly, relenting. 

  “Atta boy!” Rocky clapped him on the back happily. 

Freckle steeled himself before reaching into the slimy maw. Ivy grimaced from her spot, not at all pleased with the way things were going, but powerless to do anything. The orange tabby dug his claws into the soft gums, digging beneath the tooth. He pulled with all his might, wrenching one gold crown free with some effort. 

Rocky praised him as he took it for safe keeping. Freckle wiped some residue off on his pants then went for the second crown. His brow furrowed in concentration, focusing on the physical aspect of the task while blocking out how morbid and disgusting this whole affair was— 

The mouth clamped shut on his fingers, teeth sinking into the skin. 

Freckle howled in pain as he frantically struggled to escape. He punched and clawed at the man with his free hand. The jaws refused to budge. The man continued to bite down, staring at Freckle with hollow, milky eyes. Crunching noises burned his ears, the teeth scraped against his bones, threatening to break them. The pain was burning, searing, unbearable-  Freckle couldn’t hear himself screaming over it-

An sizable rock suddenly came down on the man’s head-  twice-  three times-  more-

Until Freckle’s hand was free and the man became still again. This time for good.  

Rocky panted from the labor it had taken to do that. His nice blue suit- his only suit- now splattered with blood. His bright orange lucky tie sadly stained as well. Vaguely he wondered how he was going to explain that to his aunt when he brought it to her to wash. His cousin’s panicked shrieks brought him back down to Earth. 

Ivy was already there, kneeling beside him, a hand over her mouth as they saw the damage. One of Freckle’s fingers had nearly been bitten all the way through. As it was, it was partially detached from his hand, and bleeding profusely, to say nothing of the other punctures where teeth had gone in. Ivy quickly wrapped his hand in her handkerchief. It was better than nothing. 

  “Come on, up. Up,” she said sternly. She grabbed Freckle’s good arm and hauled him to his feet. He shakily complied, tears streaming down his face, groaning in agony. Ivy started moving the two of them towards the car. “Rocky, come on. You’re driving.” 

She helped Freckle into the car, then scooted in beside him, putting him in the middle between her and Rocky. The grey tabby pretended not to notice his trembling hands as they settled on the steering wheel. He forced himself to smile. 

  “C-Chin up Cousin, we’ll be back to town in a jiffy-“

  “We’re going to see Elsa.” Ivy cut in. “She’s closer anyways.” 

  “But, the shipment! Miss M.-“

Ivy glared at him so severely it would’ve made Viktor proud. Rocky gulped. 

“Uh, that is, Miss M. will understand the delay. We’ll simply call her when we get there and explain everything.” 

He started the car. He turned onto the road heading into Defiance, taking the route he knew to the Arbogast funeral home, and the only doctor who’d help them for free. Not long into the drive, Freckle slumped over. 

  “I’m so tired,” he murmured. 

  “It’s alright. Here, lean on me.” Ivy adjusted him so his head was resting on her shoulder. “We’ll wake you when we get there.” 

Freckle was grateful. Rest sounded wonderful, especially when he was feeling so numb all over. The pain in his hand was still there, throbbing madly, but it felt distant in a way. Like he was experiencing it second hand. He was cold too. Through the windshield he watched the road pass by, illuminated by headlights. His vision became darker and darker. He closed his eyes…

….When they opened, they were hollow, milky white. 

…The sun was scarcely peeking over the horizon when there came a pounding on the front door. Insistent pounding. It took a few minutes for the family inside to rouse from their slumbers enough to recognize what the racket was. The Arbogasts prided themselves on being early risers, but even they despised being woken up sooner than planned. 

Bobby had half a mind to get the shot gun out of the closet. Elsa reminded him that it was poor form to murder someone simply for knocking on a door at the crack of dawn. Find out who's calling first and if they could’ve waited until later to visit them. If yes, then Bobby should shoot them. With the revolver, not the shotgun. Mustn’t telegraph their intentions. 

Not bothering to throw on more than a robe over his nightshirt and pants, Bobby made his way down the stairs, yelling at whoever it was to be patient, he was coming. He held his revolver behind his back. Marigold didn’t usually call on them in the daytime, but just in case. 

He opened the door to find the representative of his other buyer on his porch, looking far worse for wear. The young man with the too wide, too toothy smile stood fidgeting and twitching so badly Bobby would’ve thought he was on something if not for the ghosts in his blue eyes. It was an expression Bobby’s time in the Great War had made him all too familiar with. That, and the lad’s blue suit was splattered with bloodstains. A dead give away of things having gone sideways not long ago.

  “H-Hello Sir. T-Top o’the morning to you,” he stammered through a strained smile. 

  “What the bloody hell happened to you?! Come inside quick, before somebody sees you!” Bobby stood to the side gesturing for Rocky to enter. 

  “T-Thank you Sir. I shall be happy to regale you with the d-details of how I came to be in this current predicament, but first I must implore you to borrow your telephone. W-We never made back to town you see. Miss M. is likely worried sick by now.” 

  “It’s there in the parlor,” Bobby nodded to it. 

  “M-Much appreciated Sir.” Rocky stopped suddenly to turn back to him. The grin was gone. “Oh, and if you see Freckle or Miss Pepper outside, stay away from them. They’re not well.” 

Rocky gave no further explanation, leaving behind a very perplexed and very concerned Brit. 

He gave the address he wanted to connect with to the operator. The phone scarcely rang once before the other end picked up. 

  “Rocky?” 

  “Miss M!” Just hearing her voice filled him with a tide of relief. Even in spite of everything. “My deepest, most sincerest apologies for being grossly behind schedule with the delivery! Don’t worry! Not a drop’s been lost! The car’s only a tad stranded in a ditch at the moment. Some minor repairs need to be done. There was a-….I-…I was driving and Freckle-….”

Rocky trailed off. He didn’t want to say it. 

  “That’s all well and good Rocky dear, but what happened? Viktor went looking for you all about two hours ago.”

Rocky grimaced. The Slovak’s presence was bound to cause issues. Especially if he catches sight of what happened to Miss Pepper. He sighed, stuffing his free hand into his pocket as he tried to come up with an excuse so Viktor wouldn’t kill him. It wasn’t really his fault after all. His hand found something metal. 

“Rocky? Sugar, are you still there?” 

He opened his hand to see the gold crown sitting in his palm. He stared at it. 

“Honey? Answer me!” Mitzi demanded. His laughing caught her off guard. It made her fur stand on end. “Rocky?” 

  “I did it for you Miss M. I was compelled because I know how much you need the money.” 

  “You’re not making sense.”

Rocky clenched the tooth tightly in his fist, hard enough it pricked him, drawing a tiny droplet of blood.

  “I made a great sacrifice without realizing it. But that’s okay, because it’s for the greater good.” Tears stung at the corners of his eyes. “I promise I can find you new employees Miss M. Just, please, oh please, don’t be mad at me.” 

She was the only person in the world he had left now. 

Chapter Text

The fog rolling in from the bleak, cold waters of the Mississippi was especially thick that night. All the better for them to do their dirty work. 

More specifically, for Nico and Serafine to do the dirty work. Mordecai chose to merely supervise. 

  “You too afraid to get blood on your clothes you can’t give us a hand Cher?” Serafine growled, holding the legs of a fresh corpse as she and Nico hauled it out of the trunk. 

  “You and Nicodeme have the situation well in hand. If anything, I’d only impede your progress,” Mordecai replied cooly. 

It was half true. The siblings worked excellently together. They had their own rhythm. Meddling with it would delay matters when expediency was required…. 

Also, yes, he didn’t want blood on his clothes. He had the removal of such stains down to a science, but it was still a time consuming, difficult endeavor that damaged his clothes no matter what. He’d rather avoid doing it if he could. 

  “C’mon Serafine.” Nico grinned excitedly. “Let’s see how far we can throw ’em dis time!” 

Her brother’s enthusiasm was contagious. Holding the dead man between them, they brought him to the edge of the river. They swung him back and forth to build momentum. 

  “One….” they spoke together, in time to the swings. “Two….Three!” 

The Savoys threw as hard as they could. The corpse sailed through the air for a few seconds, limbs sprawling like a puppet suddenly cut from its strings. There was a heavy splash as it landed in the dark water, quickly slipping below the surface in a thin veil of white bubbles.

They laughed like delighted school children.

  “A new record!” Nico cheered. “Let’s get another!” 

Mordecai rolled his eyes at their antics. He checked his pocket watch, pleased to find they were ahead of schedule. It was three minutes to midnight. He clicked the cover shut, stowed it away in his inner coat again and gazed across the river. 

Ordinarily he’d have a decent view of the city of St. Louis, with its lights and billowing smoke stacks. Ships of varying sizes and models cutting through the water, ferrying goods and noisy passengers. Tonight, all he could see was a wall of thick white mist. It surrounded him and his cohorts, enveloping them, isolating them. It was like they’d been swallowed up by a massive beast. 

There was another splash as the last body was tossed into the river, concluding their business. Mordecai couldn’t even see the ripples on the water, the fog had become so dense. 

“Dat’s dat,” said Nico. “Dis is almost as fun as watching de pigs eat ‘em up. What ‘chu t’ink Serafine?” 

She didn’t answer. 

“Serafine?” 

She was staring straight ahead on to the water, her muscles tense. The fur of her tail was raised. Seeing her that way put him on the alert as well. 

“What is it?” 

  “We need to go. Now.” 

Nico never questioned his sister’s sixth sense and he wasn’t going to start now. The two ran the short distance back to the car. Mordecai noticed the change in their demeanors. 

  “What’s wrong?” 

  “We’re leaving Peekon. Hop in, quick.” 

  “But why? What’s the matter?” 

  “Just get in de car. We’ll explain.” 

For once, Mordecai chose not to argue. He slid into his preferred position in the middle of the backseat while the siblings shared the front, Nico driving. 

  “Well? I’m waiting,” the hitman said sharply.  

Serafine looked at him over the seat, “Dere’s something out dere Cher. I don’t know what, but it ain’t friendly.” 

  “Out…where?”

  “In de fog.” 

  “You’re being ridiculous. There isn’t another living soul within miles.” 

  “I didn’t say it was living Cher.” 

The engine spluttered when Nico turned the key, but refused to start. Wisps of white spewed from under the hood of the car. Only then did they notice the white fog was inside as well, blanketing the floor like a carpet of spiderwebs. 

Nico swore in Cajun and slammed a fist down on the dashboard. Serafine watched, concerned. 

  “C’mon!” He demanded, hissing thought clenched teeth. “Not now!” 

Mordecai asked, “Who is that?” 

It went dead quiet as the three froze, peering out the windows.  

In the moonlight, they could see the black outline of a man standing in the fog. Which was unsettling, but wouldn’t have been so alarming to three experienced and armed gangsters if not for one little detail: the unknown man was standing on top of where river water should be. Deep river water. Incidentally, where they’d been throwing a growing collection of bodies over the past few months. 

Chapter Text

He had the nightmare again.

Rain rhythmically tapped at the window while Nico sat at the edge of his bed, wearing only his pajama pants. His muscular torso was exposed to the temperate air of the luxurious room he shared with his sister, soundly sleeping in her own bed behind him. Scars new and old dotted his toned frame. Most he was proud of. Others he wished he could forget he had. A few on his shoulders and back were acting up again. It was a dull sting. Time had diluted the pain into more of an annoying itch. Still, it dredged up horrifying memories. 

Nico was fourteen, fifteen, maybe sixteen when he ventured into the swamp again. Leaving his little sister to fend for herself on the spit of dry land they used as a hide out until he got back. He was going hunting for food, which meant either catching it himself or stealing it from someone else. He preferred the latter. It made him feel strong. Like a real man. Besting an animal on its own turf with nothing but his bare fists and wit. And a knife. He’d learned the hard way, never underestimate the value of good knife, especially out in the wilderness. 

That day, teenage Nico was feeling confident. He wanted to bring home something big for his sister and himself to feast on. Bigger than the snapping turtle they’d kept since he was seven! Bigger than the python he’d brought back a few years ago! Maybe a wild pig, or another big snake. An alligator was unlikely since they kept to the water. But if Nico found one sunning itself on land, he’d consider trying it. All he had to do was not let it bite him and keep stabbing until it stopped moving. 

While paddling in his canoe in a part of the swamp much further away than he normally ventured, Nico saw something shining through the trees, over the water. Something metal. Curious, he directed his vessel towards it. 

It was a golden pocket watch, tangled in a knotted vine. Obviously left there on purpose. There were a number of random items hanging from the trees like some abstract wind chime, including a beat up rifle, a tangled wad of fishing net, a coffee pot, several rosaries. Come to think of it, most of it appeared to be lost camping gear. Nico didn’t know what to make of it. 

The gold of the pocket watch had not yet been rusted over by the humid air of the swamp. Its yellow gleam reflected in Nico’s eyes. Thoughts of how much he could get for it in town already dancing in his head. He didn’t hear how the water rippled as something big swam towards his canoe. 

Next thing he knew, there was a violent  jolt, and the canoe capsized, dumping him into the cold green water with a surprised yelp! 

Instinctively, he swam to the surface for air. As he treaded water he anxiously looked around for what in the world had done that. He knew in his gut he hadn’t hit anything. 

He got his answer when he saw a pair of blood stained antlers cutting through the water exactly like a shark’s dorsal fin. Last time Nico checked, gators didn’t have antlers. Deer weren’t that good at swimming either. Whatever it was, it was baring down on him fast! 

Anyone else would’ve started racing for shore. Nico knew better. This thing would catch him if he tried that. Instead, he withdrew his hunting knife from his belt and bared his teeth, summoning his rage to smother all fear. If this creature was going to kill him, he was going to give it one hell of a fight first. 

He saw the white of its angular head before it jumped up in a wild splash of water. For a second, time stopped. Nico saw the beast had the skeletal head of a deer, yet its torso was frighteningly cat-like! Down to the long arms covered in matted fur and hands extending wickedly curved claws stretching towards him. It screeched some deranged version of a deer call as it plunged him under the water.

Nico slashed at it with his knife, cutting at the arms gripping his shoulders. Its hold didn’t waiver. Claws sunk deeper into his flesh around his shoulders, on his back. He suddenly landed against the sandy bottom of the swamp, maybe ten feet below. The impact coming dangerously close to knocking the air out of him. Nico knew he couldn’t hold his breath very long. 

Through the murky water, he could see the alabaster skull leering at him, waiting for him to drown. Nico took a gamble. He drove his blade into the black eye socket of the creature. 

It screamed in what he hoped was pain. It acted like it hurt. The creature jerked away from him. Nico pushed off the bottom and quickly swam for the surface, lungs burning. He gulped down precious air, coughing as he feebly swam to shore. He took a few shaky steps onto land before falling to his knees in exhaustion.

He’d hardly caught his breath before he heard splashing behind him. Nico looked over his shoulder just long enough to see the antlers rising out of the water before he forced himself to his feet and dove into the brush. 

Years of swamp life had given Nico the ability to run like a rabbit. He nimbly hopped over fallen logs, dodged hanging branches, until he saw a nook beneath exposed tree roots that looked big enough to hide him. He crawled inside quickly. 

Nico suddenly came face to grizzled face with one of the local fisherman he knew from town. The man’s eyes wide open, staring in frozen fear. The smell of decay assaulted Nico’s nose. The teenager was backpedaling out of there, hairs standing on end, when he heard the awful deer-like noise again. 

The creature. It was close!

Nico gritted his teeth, hating every second as he hunkered down with the corpse- 

What was left of it. 

Nico saw everything below the fisherman’s waist was missing. The severed bone of a spinal cord peeked out from under a ripped jacket. Tattered remains of intestines still stubbornly clung to the torso. Hundreds of ants and insects swarmed the rotting meat, nibbling away at it, while flies buzzed around. Nico considered himself unflappable in the face of harsh conditions.

This…This was testing him. 

He wanted nothing more than to jump out of that hole and run all the way back home to his sister, screaming like a little boy. 

At the moment, all he could do was cover his mouth and nose. Mute his heavy breathing (and his sense of smell), in hopes the creature stalking him wouldn’t find him. 

The swamp had gone eerily quiet. No birdsong. No crickets chirping. The only insect noises he heard were from the ones crawling around on the corpse. Nico didn’t like it. As he waited, his eyes kept darting to his unwelcome company. He noticed the hands were clenching fistfuls of dirt. Nico had the sickening feeling the fisherman had dragged himself under the tree to hide after loosing his legs, in a desperate last attempt to flee. 

This had been a man who’d known the swamp like the back of his hand. If he hadn’t escaped…

Nico fought to quell his growing fear. That wouldn’t happen to him, he told himself. It wouldn’t. Because he had Serafine. She needed him, just as much as he needed her. He would not leave her alone in this world. No matter the cost. 

The creature suddenly stepped into Nico’s peripheral. His fur involuntarily puffed. He hadn’t heard the damn thing coming. How could it possibly be so quiet? 

It walked on all fours, using its hands as feet. It had hooves on its legs, and a long scaly gator tail with small, sharp, boney spikes along the spine. He heard the familiar snuffling of an animal nose searching for a scent- which didn’t make sense. The head was all bone. It didn't have a nose. 

It made no difference. The beast stalked its way to right outside Nico’s hiding spot. The teen’s heart hammered against his ribs. He had to hold down a scream when one of its hands slowly reached under the tree, long fingers probing the earth, searching. 

It knows! It knows! It knows! 

Nico forcibly swallowed his panic. He grasped the fisherman’s arm, stiffened by rigor mortis, and quietly pushed it towards the creeping limb. The second contact was made, the beast’s claws sank into the dead flesh, hooking into the body like a trout, and dragging it out in one fluid motion. 

The beast made that nerve-racking noise again. Right before a loud, nauseating crunch.

It felt like forever Nico was lying in the dirt staring intently at the hooves, ears straining to catch any little detail. His entire body flinched as the fisherman’s corpse plopped heavily onto the ground, producing a cloud of dust, dislodging some of the bugs. There was a new gaping wound in the shoulder. A bite had been taken out. 

The beast gave a snort. Then after an agonizingly long few seconds, it got on all fours again and softly crept into the swamp. It barely whispered a sound as it vanished from view.  

A scary thought entered Nico’s mind: It only eats fresh prey. 

He didn’t move.  

Nico remained paralyzed under that tree for hours. Only when he realized the sunlight was growing dim did he finally scrape together the courage to leave the marginal safety of the den. If he didn’t get home soon, Serafine might come looking for him. He’d never forgive himself if the creature got her too. 

He needed to get back to his canoe. There was a good chance it had washed up on shore somewhere not far from where the monster had flipped it. Nico swallowed thickly at the thought of going back to where he’d first encountered the creature, but he’d never make it home on foot through the swamp at night. That was a death trap in itself. 

The young man used all he had learned in his short life about stealth to make his way through the trees, mud, and rocks back to the water, careful not to make a sound. He stayed low to the ground, hesitant to stand at his full height unless he needed to get his bearings. Every small sound, every snap of a twig, every rustle of leaves had him on edge. His ears swiveled in every direction, and he was checking over his shoulder every five seconds, all but certain that white deer skull with its bloody antlers would be there, ready to pounce. He didn’t know how he made it to the water without incident. 

A soft wind had begun to blow. Nico saw the lost items in the vines again, swaying on the breeze. In the orange glare of the setting sun, the metal objects in the collection glittered ominously. There was a new one dangling from the trees, like a pretty worm on a hook, glinting in the light. 

Nico’s hunting knife. 

Rain rhythmically tapped against the glass of the hotel window. Nico watched without seeing from the edge of his bed. He rubbed one of his shoulders, trying to massage away an old, dull ache. The monster had left its mark on him in more ways than one. 

Nico remembered thanking Leblanc profusely when he found and retrieved his canoe. His sister had, rightfully, been upset with him coming home so late, and without food to boot. They’d ended up killing the snapping turtle they’d kept like a pet for a decade and making a stew out of him. 

He never told his sister what happened that day in the swamp. Out of hurt pride or fear he can’t fully say. And in spite of her insistently trying to get him to tell her too. Of course she had picked up on how weirdly avoidant of the swamp he became in the weeks after, staying close to their home, or favoring the town. He never gave her a straight answer. 

Several days after the incident, he heard tell of more people going missing in the swamp after the fisherman’s mysterious disappearance. Nico’s come to suspect that perhaps he had only escaped the monster because it had found new prey to hunt. For months the list of missing persons only continued to grow. He kept his mouth shut, not wanting anything to do with it. Surely someone else would figure it out and take care of it. 

He has no way of knowing what happened, but one day, the disappearances simply stopped. On their own. Nobody spoke a word about a beast with bloody antlers, huge claws, and an alligator’s tail. If anyone else had found out, they were keeping mute about it, the same as him. Nico never saw that monster again, save for when it appeared in his nightmares. Even as an adult, the creature still stalked him in his subconscious.  

It was still out there, somewhere. Hunting for fresh prey. 

Chapter Text

The doctors said they were going to cure him.

He had a sickness of the mind, they told him. Not suitable for society at large. They promised they’d make him better.

No more outbursts of high emotion and confusing poetry. No more fits from consuming too much sugar, and, on that note, he’d have a regular diet. No more pancakes drenched in syrup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No more inappropriate laughing. No more impulsive music playing. No more reckless risk taking. 

They were going to fix him. Turn him into a productive, model member of society. After the procedure, he’d be nice and calm. Stable.  

Normal. 

Wouldn’t that be grand?

Such a relief. 

Yes, there will be some pain, but he won’t remember it later. None of the previous patients had complained afterwards. He’d met a few of them hadn’t he? Weren’t they so polite, so serene? Not a troubled thought in their heads. That’s the kind of peace the doctors wished to give him. 

And so it was baffling how their patient, Mr. Rickaby, fought them. Straining against the belts of his straight-jacket and trying to bite anyone who dared come too close with his unusually long teeth. He absolutely refused to lie still. The doctors had no choice but to order he be restrained further. Mr. Rickaby was visibly upset. 

It was as if he didn’t want to be cured. Poor thing. He was so out of his mind he couldn’t recognize that the people were only trying to help him. After all, he’d been locked up in the asylum for a reason. If he ever wanted to be released back into polite society, it was the institution’s job to heal him of his madness, by separating the bad parts of his brain from the good parts, first. 

The doctors explained this to him multiple times before. Mr. Rickaby continued to insist he was not insane. 

  “I don’t have a bad brain!” He sobbed. “My train of thought merely runs on different tracks from the average man. You wouldn’t lobotomize Shakespeare for writing plays about Faeries would you?” 

Delusions of grandeur, the doctors noted, the patient comparing himself to a great historical figure. Typical among the mentally handicapped. 

The most experienced of the doctors took up the ice pick, the rest either on standby ready to help or taking notes on how to conduct the procedure themselves in the future. It was rather hard to focus with the patient wailing and screaming like a wayward child who’d lost his mother. They momentarily debated among themselves whether to gag him or not. A wooden bit to bite down on may help mitigate the pain. They decided against it. Their patient needed full use of his air ways throughout the operation. They would soldier through, endure the auditory annoyance for science. 

Mr. Rickaby fought, as expected. An orderly had to hold his skull still for the doctor. Luckily, the doctor was well practiced. The operation was over in the span of a few minutes.

Mr. Rickaby didn’t scream anymore. It was highly unlikely he’d ever scream or cry again. His eyes were glazed over, staring at nothing. Another doctor wiped the blood off his face, sanitizing the area. It was expected that Mr. Rickaby would be catatonic for a while, but overall the doctors predicted the procedure to be a resounding success with an inevitable full recovery. 

They could tell he was already feeling better simply from the way he smiled so serenely, unbothered by anything. Mr. Rickaby didn’t have a troubling thought in his head. 

Chapter Text

In Rocky’s defense: it’s all Wick’s fault. 

If the Robber Barron hadn’t pointed out the new fossil to all of them, going on and on about how it was “spectacularly rare,” and a “million years old,” and in “exquisite condition,” blah, blah, blah, Rocky never would’ve tried to ruin clean it by dumping a bucket of dirty mop water on it—  accidentally. Honestly, how could anyone have predicted that a splash of water would somehow, miraculously, reanimate the damn thing and send it scurrying off on its tentacle arms into Wick’s Manse? If anything, Wick, as the resident “expert” on fossils really should have known better than to let somebody clean the floor near that thing. 

Rocky also didn’t understand why Wick was panicking about the thing being loose in his house. (Though it did bring joy to his heart seeing the man fretting.) It was just a really big starfish, about the size of one the aggregate’s fancy dinner plates. They were harmless. 

The group happened upon the body of one of Mr. Sable’s maids not long after. She was shriveled and dried up like a raisin. Angry red marks in the shape of a star on her face. 

Okay, so, it wasn’t completely harmless. 

But Rocky had a solution. Seeing as Mr. Sable was a good (Rocky gritted his teeth, smile straining) friend of Miss M.’s , he and his cousin would be more than happy to play exterminator and rid the poor gentleman of his invertebrate vermin problem. For a large cash reward. 

Wick agreed immediately and the hunt was on! 

Rocky and Freckle went to work, borrowing some fishing nets, combing the large house for the little crawling thing. Wick went around to evacuate his staff before anything else bad happened to any of them.  

The cousins looked high and low. No creature. 

They did find another body fallen behind a counter in the kitchen. Same red, star marking on the face. Same horrifying shriveled up condition. Like the corpse had been lying out in a desert for a week with the harsh sun beating down on it. 

Rocky poked the cadaver with the handle of his net, posing as though deep in thought as he did. 

  “Appears to me, my dear Freckle, that the creature has a taste for cat flesh.” 

  “Yeah…” Freckle’s eyes darted around, looking anywhere but at the poor soul who’s life had been cut short far too soon. His gaze landed on a basket of fruits. “Hey. Wait, look at this.” 

  “Hmm?” 

  “These fruits are all dried up, just like the body. See? This used to be an apple.” He held in his hand the shrunken remains of a red fruit turned pale and twisted around its own core, a sizable puncture in its soft flesh. “I think the starfish only eats fluids. Juice from fruits. Blood from animals.” 

  “Oh, tut, tut, dear sweet, naive Cousin.” Rocky shook his head like a disappointed parent. “Clearly you aren’t as knowledgable as I in the scientific world of biology. Starfish don’t drink blood. That’s Vampires.” 

Freckle huffed, “Then how do you explain-“ 

He was interrupted by frantic screaming coming from upstairs. Their fur puffed with alarm, ears standing straight up. 

“That’s Mr. Sable!” Freckle gasped. 

  “The monster’s got him!” Rocky grinned gleefully, as his tail wagged with joy. Until Freckle leveled a dry look at him. “Oh, uh, I mean- Oh no! That malicious marine fiend is going after poor, stuffy, old Wick! The horror!”

  “Come on,” Freckle sighed with a roll of his eyes. He gripped his net tightly and dashed quickly for the stairs. Rocky shrugged.

  “Eh, I’ll leave this to you.”

  “You know if he dies, we don’t get paid, right?” 

  “I’m right behind you.” 

Well, a dozen paces behind Freckle more accurately. The lad was simply a much faster runner. He was quick to track down the source of the disturbance. They found Wick in his spacious bedroom, panting like he’d run a marathon, and holding a door closed. His fur was rigid all over. 

  “Mr. Sable?” Freckle’s voice startled the man, eliciting a flinch. “Are you okay?” 

  “He’s not a husk,” Rocky observed with thinly veiled disappointment. 

  “I-“ Wick started, then stopped to breathe. “Yes, I think so. I lost some fur though.” He held up one of his arms. There were several small patches of fur missing. Freckle grimaced. “The damn thing jumped out at me from the bathtub! I’m lucky I shook it off before it could latch on, or else I might’ve ended up like poor Vera.”

  “‘Lucky.’ Sure.”

 “I’ve got it locked in the bathroom. It- oh god, it’s gotten bigger!” 

  “What?” The cousins said simultaneously. 

There came an awful clattering, cracking noise from the other side of the door, and the smashing of glass. Wick leapt away from it like it had bitten him. 

The three huddled together, none brave enough to move in the eerie, heavy silence that came after. Their eyes fixed on the door, waiting for movement, noise- anything. 

Nothing.

Rocky suddenly pushed Freckle forward, “Go check it out, Cousin.” 

  “Wha?!” He turned large, horrified, pleading amber eyes to Rocky. 

  “Somebody has to look, and, you know, you’re faster than me.” 

   “B-But-“

   “And I employed you,” Wick added. “So, technically, it’s your job to look while I- we stay behind and… cover your back for you.” 

  “Exactly!” Rocky nodded. 

Seeing he was out voted (and out coward-ed), Freckle resigned himself to his fate. 

Brandishing his net like a weapon, he carefully unlocked the door. The click of the lock rang in his ears too loud. He hoped it hadn’t tipped off the monster. It felt like eons passed by slowly as he swung the wooden door open wide enough to allow his entry. He didn’t go in right away, instead he shuffled from right to left, seeing as far inside the bathroom as he could without actually going in first. 

He didn’t see the creature. He did notice right away that the window was broken. 

On a hunch, Freckle strode over the threshold, going straight for the bathtub—  empty. 

  “It’s gone,” he called to his compatriots. “I think it went out the window.” 

  “Oh merciful heavens no!” Wick was alarmed. “We cannot allow that thing to escape! There’s no telling what it will do if it gets to the city! Or how big it could grow!” 

  Freckle inspected the damage of the window more closely, noting how big the new hole was in the fractured glass, and cracked walls around the frame. 

  “We’re going to need bigger nets,” he said grimly. 

  “I doubt it’ll head for the city, Old Sport,” said Rocky. “You see, based on my keen eye observations, I noticed that our wayward, vampiric sea star has a taste for wet food and an attraction to moist places.” 

  “Oh! Of course, it’s a marine animal! It needs water. That’s why it was lurking in the bath tub. Outside, it’ll head for nearest body of water,” Wick concluded. 

Freckle realized in horror, “The Mississippi!” 

If the creature was steadily growing, who was to say it wouldn’t start attacking boats if it made it into the great river? And the ocean beyond?

  “That indeed would be worst case scenario. However, I think it’ll make one last stop before leaving my property.” 

A short time later, the party was tentatively peering around a corner of the mansion. Stretched out ahead of them was Wick’s large, well manicured back yard. Complete with a patio, lounging chairs with umbrellas, and a big swimming pool.  

They all stared at the water. Not a ripple in sight. Even with the back yard lights on, there was no way to see inside the dark water of the pool at night. At least not from their current position. 

  “You think it’s….in there?” Freckle scarcely dared to whisper. 

  “Positive,” Wick said quietly. Despite the chill of the air, he was sweating. “You only need to go flush it out now.” 

  “Oh no. I’ve got the gun this time,” Freckle hefted up his tommy for show. “One of you gets to be bait. I’ll shoot it when it goes after you.” 

Rocky and Wick exchanged uneasy glances. The grey tabby smiled slyly. 

  “Lets settle this fairly, Old Sport,” Rocky removed a silver coin from his pocket. “Heads you go. Tails I go.” 

  “That seems fair,” Wick agreed after a moment’s hesitation. 

Rocky tossed the coin in the air, the flat metal spinning before falling into his palm — Heads. 

Wick swallowed thickly as he seemed to shrink, his ears pinning back against his skull.

Rocky grinned triumphantly. “Better luck next time pal. Remember to make yourself look as appetizing as possible.” 

Wick made a slight detour to grab a rake that had been left outside before cautiously creeping his way towards the pool at a snail’s pace. While watching him, Rocky nudged his cousin to get his attention. 

Freckle looked up at him questioningly. Rocky held a finger to his lips as he showed his cousin the coin. Both sides had heads on it. Freckle stared in wide-eyed shock as the other giggled under his breath. 

Meanwhile, Wick inched closer and closer to the edge of the pool, flinching at every shadow he encountered on the way (including his own, multiple times). Brandishing the wrought iron teeth of the rake for protection. He hadn’t even seen the bloody thing yet and he was breathing faster.

At the edge of the pool, the dark, placid water still gave away nothing. Wick hovered the rake over the water. Waved it around a little. He dipped it into the water quickly, causing a little splash, and jumped back. 

No reaction. 

He glanced back at the other two. Freckle motioned for him to keep going while Rocky grinned that off-putting crescent moon grin of his, giving a thumbs up. Wick allowed a slight groan of exasperation to escape him as he returned to the anxiety inducing task at hand. He splashed the water around again with the rake a few more times. Getting no bites, he decided to see how far down he could let the rake go into the water without letting it sink. 

Wick was at the shallow end of the pool. If the rake hit bottom, he expected it to scrape against concrete. The teeth found something soft instead. He felt a twitch through the handle that sent a jolt of alarm through his whole body. He waved at Freckle to hurry up with the gun.

  “It’s here!” He called as loudly as he dared. Freckle nodded and began to approach, the nose of the weapon pointed down, finger near the trigger. 

As long as the starfish was in the water, bullets would do no harm. Even shallow water could reduce the impact of an otherwise deadly projectile. Wick knew he had to goad the thing into surfacing. So, knowing it was a bad idea, he lifted the rake, then brought it down as hard as he could, stabbing the iron teeth into spiny flesh. 

The reaction was instant. Through the wooden handle, Wick felt something big yank away from the rake. The garden tool was suddenly wrenched from his grip. The water churned, becoming choppy as parts of the creature began to break the surface. Wick’s stomach dropped in horror. Somehow, in the brief time since he’d last seen it, it had grown more. It was easily twice the size of his Duesenberg!

Wick backed away a couple steps as one of the arms reared up out of the water like the leviathan. He saw hundreds of worm like appendages on its underside in rows, shifting, twitching. The tip of the arm pointed at him. There was a red sphere-like organ protruding from it. Wick realized with a start it was an eye. He was being stared at. His throat went dry.

As more of the monstrous sea star rose from the pool, Wick’s feet remained rooted to the spot, tail puffing. 

The spell was broken by the ear-shattering rattle of rapid gunfire. Bullets ripped through tender flesh and sinew. The arms writhed, splashing water in every direction. An unearthly squealing erupted from the creature’s mouth. 

Wick fell over backwards, scrambling away. Freckle kept up the onslaught as he approached, a grin to rival his cousin’s splitting his face, showing off teeth. Fire danced in his eyes. Unknowingly, he chuckled in time to the tommy gun’s rhythm. 

Freckle’s violence fueled merriment was cut short as the creature refused to take anymore. With frightening strength, it launched itself out of the water, aiming to land its large body on its attacker, like a killer whale upon a seal. 

Freckle kept firing, determined to kill the damned thing, until the last second when he had no choice but to dive out of the way, or be crushed. 

The ground trembled, patio bricks breaking as the monster sea star landed heavily. Freckle tucked into a roll and was back on his feet in a second. He got a few more shots off before one of the arms knocked the wind out of him, colliding with his stomach, and throwing him against the wall of the manse. The weapon clattered to the ground. The orange tabby fought to remain conscious as he slid to the ground against the wall. 

Rocky cursed in Irish, tail puffing as he saw the team muscle get his clock cleaned. He clung to the corner. Still unwilling to get involved in the fight. After all, if his fearless little fighter couldn’t handle it, what could he, Spaghetti Arms McGee, do? 

The starfish was out of the pool, advancing on Freckle. The worm-like things moving like many, many feet to carry its large body. 

  “Rocky!” Wick yelled at him from across the patio. “For god’s sake DO SOMETHING!” 

Familiar rage flickered inside him. Even with everything going on he still felt outraged that pompous rock head had the audacity to bark orders at him. 

  “You want me to do something?” He growled under his breath, glaring, reaching into an inner coat pocket. “Fine. I’ll do something.” 

Freckle forced himself to stand on shaking feet. His body still aching all over, threatening to collapse at any second. He gritted his teeth, defiantly confronting the beast as it reared up three of its arms. It revealed a hissing mouth at its center, open and waiting. The arms reached for Freckle menacingly. The orange tabby knew he wouldn’t be fast enough to escape this time. 

Rocky was suddenly in front of him, yelling wildly, something bright in his hand. “EAT THIS YE SEA DEVIL!” 

The stick of dynamite went sailing through the air, fuse burning. It landed in the starfish’s mouth. The creature swallowed it-

-And continued to bear down on the cousins. 

Rocky’s brash boldness receded as quickly as it had come. He backed against the wall, joining Freckle. Their hearts hammered. Its shadow fell over them. 

The creature suddenly exploded. Its center popped liked the world’s most disgusting balloon. The cousins were both drenched in water and blood and bits of organs belonging to both the creature and, they realized in horror, the creature’s victims. 

The starfish remained unmoving on the ground. After a few minutes of staring and heavy breathing, the tense silence was broken by Rocky’s manic laughing. Loud, loony, and victorious. Freckle, mind rather occupied by the guts and stuff he didn’t want to identify, could only half-heartedly chuckle along. 

They’d won. They’d slain the beast! Rocky was right about that much. 

  “Dynamite?!” Their moment of glory was interrupted by an irate Wick, stalking towards them. “You blew it up with dynamite!” 

  “I think what you mean to say is, ‘Thank you boys for saving my tail from that monster’. You’re welcome by the way. Freckle and I take cash only.” Rocky said condescendingly. 

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?!” 

Freckle remained silent, falling back into his timid personality. He’d never seen Wick angry before. Rocky just rolled his eyes. 

  “Solved your monster problem, I believe. Ungrateful-“ 

  “You’ve multiplied the problem is what you’ve done!” 

  “Pardon?” 

  “Do you really have no idea?!” When they only stared at him, Wick ran a weary hand down his face. “When a starfish gets ripped into pieces, all of those pieces grow into new starfish!” 

That…did make a difference.

The cousins looked at the perhaps-not-quite-dead-after-all remains of the beast. Three of its arms were severed. There were much smaller bits and chunks of it scattered all over the backyard. Freckle counted at least fifteen that he could see, with many more to go. A pit of dread settled in his stomach. Wick sighed, pushing down his frustration with effort. 

“I’m going to the garage to fetch some gasoline,” he informed the cousins. “There’s a wood pile over there. The only way to ensure this creature stays dead is to burn every piece of it, and we need to do it fast.” 

Gathering every wayward scrap of starfish was no easy feat. Going through the pool to find any bits that might’ve landed in the water was especially a royal pain in the ass. But it had to be done. 

By the time the sun began to climb into the sky, a plume of smoke was already there. The air smelled of salt water and, weirdly, fried chicken. The three found they had no appetite, however. 

When it was finally over, Wick invited the cousins to sleep in the guest bedrooms for all their hard work. He hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep either, but was going into his office anyways, with the promise of paying them when he returned. 

Weeks passed. The terror of the reanimated ancient starfish monster began to fade into memory. A storm rolled in, pelting the land with rain.

The last, tiny, shred of the starfish, hidden amongst the bushes of the garden, soaked in the life giving water. 

Chapter Text

He never turns off the radio anymore. 

When the three did not return to Lackadaisy that night, Viktor didn’t hesitate to get in his truck and use his repertoire of skills acquired over the years in this line of work to track them down. He investigated the pick-up sight, where he discovered the body of a man he didn’t know. His chest punctured numerous times by gunfire, and his skull shattered by a rock. Viktor felt discomfited that both methods had been used, when one should have sufficed. 

He deduced from the tire tracks left behind that the three were heading into Defiance—

The Arbogast Funeral Home.

It was the only place out there he could think they’d go. Which meant at least one of them was injured. He quickly climbed into his truck again, and sped down the road, pushing the engine as fast as it could go, not caring if he was racing over gravel and dirt. 

The sight of the car left abandoned, crashed in a ditch on the side of the road, filled him with a sense of dread Viktor had believed he’d never feel again. Not since the Great War had numbed his emotions, and years of bootlegging and dulled his empathy. He barely remembered to put the truck in park before he stepped out to investigate.

The car doors were left wide open. Peering inside, he saw not a soul. A large spatter of blood, still wet and glistening in the morning sunlight, stained the front seat, dripping to the floor. Viktor felt a wave of nausea ripple through him, the world tilting sideways. He griped the car for balance. 

Once his stomach had settled, and his hands had stopped shaking, he willed his training to take over once more. He examined the dirt around the car. One set of tracks was spaced wider apart, dashing off down the road: Rocky. He had little doubt, just going by how long the stride was compared to the others. He sent a glare in that direction, making a mental note to knock that buffoon flat for abandoning Ivy and his own cousin. 

Upon closer inspection, Viktor found a trail of blood staining the dirt, leading into the woods. He could see red coating some of the plants, including (his heart leapt into his throat) a bloody hand print smeared across the trunk of a tree. 

While there was no sign of an enemy party, Viktor collected the shotgun from the truck anyway. Instinct told him he’d need it. 

Hours later. Viktor’s hands were trembling. It was giving him trouble as he struggled to secure his precious cargo in the bed of the truck, hidden by an old tarp. His ears twitched at the sound of a new motor announcing its presence. He stood up, gazing over the roof of his truck to see a beat up old hearse approaching. Seemed Rocky had made it to the Arbogasts after all, he snorted. 

The hearse slowed to a stop. Viktor climbed down back onto the road to meet them. He saw the three passengers inside: Abelard, Bobby, and that smiling idiot who lacked the decency to die with his comrades. Viktor glared at him the most fiercely. That walking string bean was lucky Viktor was in a hurry to get home. 

Rocky dared not leave the vehicle as Viktor exchanged a few words with the other two. The Slovak explained that he had gone looking for his missing wards in the woods….and found them. They were no longer themselves. Viktor had used the shotgun, and just spent the better part of the morning burying them both where he found them, in the wilderness.  

The preacher and the fellow war veteran were dismayed, but not surprised to hear such news. Evidently, Rocky had explained to them that a strange mad man had attempted to bite his cousin’s fingers off last night and partially succeeded. The lad passed out on the trip to their home to give him medical aid. When he woke up, he went inexplicably mad and attacked Ivy. The commotion and the fighting caused Rocky to loose control of the vehicle, which is how it drove into the ditch. It was a miracle it was as undamaged as it was. 

Rage clouded Viktor’s vision. He roared, his deep voice thundering through the woods, startling nearby animals. 

  “Ivy vas attacked and YOU RAN AVAY!” 

Abelard and Bobby stepped back, having no interest in trying to get between a livid Viktor and the object of his wrath. Nor did they have a death wish. Rocky, who’d been hiding behind the car door, only daring to peek his head high enough to see out the window, ducked back down out of sight again. As if he thought Viktor couldn’t get to him, or would simply, magically forget about him, if he couldn’t see him. 

Viktor was every inch a viscous wild animal in that moment. Panting, growling, long fangs bared, claws out, and fur bushed all over. He was ready to give in to his bloodlust and rip the little bastard apart limb from limb.

But he was stopped, by a small thought. He had something important he needed to do. 

And so, with herculean effort, Viktor smothered his anger. At least for now. He curtly informed Abelard and Bobby they could assist Rocky in fixing the car and the moron could drive the product back to Lackadaisy after. Now? Viktor was leaving. He was done.

He got in his truck, and left them. 

He hated the radio. He couldn’t stand having a noisy object jabbering, wailing away in his home. Now, he couldn’t stand to leave it off. 

Viktor didn’t go to work that night. Or the night after. 

When he finally showed his face at Lackadaisy, the despair in the air was palpable. The small crew grieved for their dazzling young Jazz Princess, taken far too soon. And for the brave young man she’d become infatuated with. They hadn’t known him as long, but he was still one of theirs. 

The band looked like death warmed over. They lounged across the stage like beached whales surrendered to their fate, slowly cooking in the hot sun. Zib in particular seemed to have left his own body behind, staring into an invisible abyss only he could see. Void of the energy to even light a cigarette or lift a drink to his lips. Mr. Sable was equally grim and cheerless, though he still made an effort to comfort a despondent Mitzi, mourning her Goddaughter. 

Rocky wasn’t there. 

According to Zib, once he’d come back to Earth for a few minutes, Rocky had been picked up by the police that afternoon. Seems his aunt had contacted them about her son’s sudden disappearance, and named him as a possible person of interest. The police were only going to question Rocky, but, he’d spooked and made a run for it. In the eyes of “St. Louis’s Finest” that was as good as a confession. He’d been tackled, roughed up, and hauled off to jail. 

Viktor couldn’t help feeling a sense of satisfaction at Rocky’s misfortune. The resentment towards him had only grown the past few nights. 

At the same time, this meant Mitzi was officially out of rum-runners to fetch new product for her. Lackadaisy would be dead too very soon if something didn’t give. 

Days passed. Rocky did not return. Mitzi was left with no alternative but to work the supply runs herself, exchanging her fabulous evening gowns for a trench coat and pants, and bringing Viktor along as support. She’d promoted Ben to temporary Bar Keep in the meantime. 

The bad news had been passed along to Ruby, Ivy’s father. He was expected in town soon. Viktor wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. 

While Viktor watched Mitzi stumble around, adjusting to this new role, the newspaper headlines buzzed about a frightening new illness on the rise. One that converted innocent people into bloodthirsty cannibals driven by hunger and madness. The infected exhibited odd behaviors such as menacing growls, and hisses- they were incapable of normal speech- and possessed an insatiable appetite for flesh. The papers further detailed the infected's inability to feel pain, and how they would doggedly pursue a target no matter how much they were injured in the process. Luckily, the disease appears to impair motor functions, making the infected slow moving. They could be easily avoided by simply running away. The origins of this disease were completely unknown, and more and more infected were appearing by the day. It was confirmed that the illness spreads primarily through being bitten by an infected.  

The Mayor’s Office put out a statement, wanting to assure the public that everything was under control. If anyone spotted someone behaving strangely, unable to communicate, moving slowly, eyes filmed over by a milky white color, then under no circumstance should they approach that person. Instead, they should lock themselves inside as quickly as possible and call the police. The public should also take comfort in knowing that the city’s most brilliant minds in medicine were hard at work devising a cure for this illness. The most important thing now was that the population remain calm. 

Calm wasn’t an accurate word for the tension that settled over the city like a thick, ghostly fog. Everyone was on edge and paranoid. Viktor knew he had to be careful. 

It finally occurred to him that he hadn’t seen his elderly roommate, Mrs. Bapka, in a few days. 

Viktor was greeted by blissful silence as he tiredly crossed the threshold into his modest home on North Market Street. Only to be smacked with the realization that it should never be quiet in his house. Not anymore. He left the radio playing at all hours for a reason. 

Going on the alert, he listened as he softly padded to the door leading downstairs to the cellar. He felt a chill as he saw it was wide open. The solitary lightbulb at the top of the cement stairs leading underground was lit. It buzzed gently, constantly. Snarls and growls echoed up from below, burning his ears.

At the bottom of the stairs he saw a man. He stood silent and still, with his back straight as a ruler, staring into the cellar. Viktor knew what had captured his attention, he’d just hadn’t expected him of all people to show up at his home out of the blue. 

Painfully, slowly, clinging to the hand rail, Viktor inched down the stairs. Doing this weeks ago with an uncooperative passenger had been next to impossible, but he’d managed through determination. Viktor also realized what a severe disadvantage he was at against this man should he become hostile. 

He was a few stone steps away from the cold floor when his ex-partner finally acknowledged him, by turning to gaze at him.

Viktor was shocked. Not even when Atlas had been killed had he seen Mordecai look so sorrowful. The dim electric light of the cellar reflected off the metal of his pince-nez and the thin, nearly imperceptible streak of tears escaping from his emerald eyes. He spoke in a low, raspy whisper. 

  “How could you?” 

Viktor crawled up the stairs back into his home, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He was surviving on sheer stubbornness at this point. He knew his time was growing short. 

Damn Mordecai. Why couldn’t he have just minded his own business? Why hadn’t he understood? Viktor did all this to protect Ivy. There’d been no need to shout, no need to argue, no need to shoot, and no need to get bitten. 

But Mordecai, noxious, arrogant ass that he was, had insisted on going through with all of that anyways and look where it had gotten them! At least Ivy had company now, he supposed. She’d always liked Mordecai too. Hopefully soon, they could be cured together. Then they’d see. They’d all see. 

He hauled himself to his feet, using the stairs to the second story to prop his large frame up. He gritted his teeth, pushing through the pain in his chest. He made the arduous journey to the living room, precariously swaying side to side, threatening to fall over. He switched on the radio. Turned up the volume. He hated the noise, but it was necessary. 

Only then did he allow himself to collapse into his arm chair with a flop. He brought his arm up to look at. The bite mark burned as badly as the new bullet holes. Mordecai had killed him. But Ivy would bring him back. They just had to be patient. 

Viktor turned his gaze to the window. The glowing moon and the sparkling stars of the night sky hovered beyond, through the lace curtains. He watched them as his vision grew blurry, then, gradually, all faded to black. 

The sun came up. Life continued on as normal outside the house on North Market Street, with its little wrought iron fence standing on the perimeter of the property line. Vines of ivy crept up the brick walls from the ground to the second story windows. Music drifted out the windows, played through the electronic tubes of a marvel of technology. 

The music hid the noises. The people going about their daily lives on the street had no idea, inside that house, a hulking, shambling corpse aimlessly wandered from room to room, leaving bloody footprints in its wake. Growling and hissing and hungry. 

Below in the basement were two more. A fresh corpse of a thin man who was impeccably dressed before, now wrapped in a bloodied and ripped coat, freely roamed the cold, dark, underground space. The other, a girl, bound by a rope tying her arms to her waist and tethered to a wall, could only snap her jaws at imaginary prey as she groaned. At her feet lay a small skeleton, the bones picked clean of meat, and a broken pair of glasses. 

Only the dead resided in this dwelling. Waiting for someone to come in the unlocked front door. 

Chapter Text

The chilly night air stung her lungs as she labored to breathe under her heavy load. Her big brother certainly was bigger than her. But she’d be damned if she left him behind to die. 

Serafine carried Nico on her back, his longer legs dragging on the ground behind them, bare feet scraping against grass and dirt. She had to walk hunched over to keep him in place. It made her progress painfully slow when her instincts kept screaming at her that they were gaining on them.

She had no idea where Mordecai was. Between the thick fog and multiple attackers that had no fear of bullets, they’d gotten separated. For a while, she could her the shots of his semi-automatic ring out. She didn’t hear it any more. He was fastidious enough to keep track of how many bullets he fired. She wondered if he’d saved one. Mordecai Heller seemed the type to spite his enemies by taking his own life rather than allowing them to do so. 

Serafine pressed on, determined. If she could make it to the road, she could flag down a passing car and steal it. Mordecai was on his own. Her brother needed her. She had to get him to the Marigold’s medic. 

An intense freezing chill raced up her spine. It made her gasp. She could see her breath in the moonlight.

Serafine dare to look back. 

Like an avalanche of snow, a giant cloud of thick, white fog was quickly devouring the forest behind them. Getting closer and closer by the second. Trees, rocks, bushes, land, sky, all winking out of existence, swallowed by the mist like a serpent swallowing prey. 

Serafine’s legs ached, and her lungs burned as she forced herself desperately to run. Nico’s limp form weighed her down like an anchor. 

The fog was faster.

   “NO!” She shouted as the white tendrils surrounded them, obscuring the path forward. She and her brother were cut off from the world. 

It was no use, she relented. She couldn’t run anymore. 

She stopped, and squatted down to gently lay Nico in the grass. He didn’t stir. The relief on her shoulders and spine was immense. She brushed strands of curly dark hair out of her face, the neat, tight bun she usually she kept it in for work having come loose a long time ago. 

The night was quiet around them. No bird song or chirping bugs. Not even leaves rustling in the wind. Serafine took the moment to catch her breath, though her eyes kept darting everywhere, searching for movement. 

They were there. Watching. They just hadn’t shown themselves yet. 

Serafine took Nico’s hunting knife from his belt. In her other hand, she flicked open her switchblade. She positioned herself directly over Nico, with him between her feet. If they wanted to get at him they would have to move her first. 

“I will not run anymore!” She called into the fog, standing as tall as she could, blades catching the light of the moon. “Come face my wrath you demon dogs!” 

At first, nothing happened. Serafine was all alone, stranded in an abyss of white. 

Then, her senses picked up on something. It crawled up her limbs like slithering snakes, making her fur stand on end. 

It was a deep, unyielding rage. 

There were figures ahead in the fog. They just…appeared. As if she blinked and there they were. Standing like statues, dark and menacing. Draped in shadow, she couldn’t make out much of their features. Their hair and tattered clothes fluttered in a breeze she didn’t feel. She smelled decay.

This was how it had started last time at the river bank. Only now, there was no escape. 

Serafine braced herself, mentally preparing to fight to the death, when one of them spoke. 

  “No…” came the wet, raspy noise. She couldn’t tell right away which one had said it. 

The one in the middle of the small group came forward, slowly, mechanically placing one foot in front of the other. Its eyes glowed red like burning hot coals. Every heavy step rang in her ears.

Serafine’s heart pounded, sweat dripping down her brow, but she stood firm. 

“You….” 

It stepped closer. 

“Face….” 

Closer. 

“Our….”

There was an axe in its hand. Blood dripped from the blade. 

“Wrath….” 

His face stung as somebody slapped him harshly.

  “Wake up!” 

Nico grunted, wincing at both the new pain, the older pains, and the bright sunlight in his eyes. He made out a black shape standing over him. 

   “Huh?” It was the most coherent thing he could say at the moment. 

  “Can you stand?” The shape asked him, voice familiar. 

Nico wasn’t sure. He thought he could. 

Pain shot through him as he tried to simply sit up. He gingerly maneuvered himself upright, then chose to take a breather. He’d try standing up when the aches died down again. 

There was something on the ground near him. He barely saw it in the corner of his eye. As he turned to look at it, gloved hands captured his face, forcing him to stare straight ahead. 

He was met with the somber green eyes of Mordecai. The hitman appeared to have crawled through a muddy briar patch. His ordinarily impeccably clean and pressed black suit had rips all over, patches of dried mud in places. His previously perfectly styled hair fell loosely over his face. Even his pince-nez had not been spared, one lens having a tiny crack in it. 

“Focus on me right now,” he ordered. “Can you stand?” 

Nico smiled slyly, leaning into the other man’s touch more than was necessary. 

  “Wit’ your help I can.”

There came no disgust. No rolling of the eyes, or exasperated huffing. Mordecai simply nodded. 

Something was off. 

As Mordecai positioned himself to help Nico off the ground, the taller man began to recall the events of last night. An unease came over him.

“Where’s Serafine?” 

He tried to turn his head to search. Again, Mordecai stopped him, repeating the motion from earlier. There was something in the hitman’s expression. Something pleading.  

  “Don’t look over there.” 

Injured though he was, Nico still had no trouble shoving Mordecai away from him. And he looked. 

It took a few seconds to understand what he was seeing. That these bloody, mangled, pieces of meat and bone strewn across the grass used to be his sister. 

His mournful wailing could be heard from the road. 

Chapter Text

Ivy grumbled as she pushed open the backdoor of her family’s large house. The backyard patio and lawn, covered in colorful fall leaves was there to greet her. Bathed in the late afternoon sun, and elongated shadows of the trees.

It wasn’t fair. Why was she constantly getting blamed for all the dumb things her stupid little siblings did?! It wasn’t her fault! 

Ivy angrily kicked a small pile of leaves, sending them scattering.

Uuuuughggh. She couldn't wait for her dad to come back from his business trip or whatever in St. Louis. He’d never have punished her so unjustly! Her mom was just the worst!

She stomped towards the garden shed to get a rake. Her mother had seen fit to saddle her with clearing the patio of leaves and debris. Even though that was the Gardener’s job.  

As she approached the small, wooden building, she saw a peculiar looking broom leaned against the side. The handle was clearly wooden, and smooth, but it had a significant curve about three quarters of the way up the handle. The yellow bristles bunched together at the bottom in a way that reminded her of a paintbrush. 

Well, it was sitting right there. She supposed her mother wouldn’t mind if she used that instead of the rake, so long as the patio got cleaned. She picked it up and went to work, still muttering under her breath about the unfairness of it all. 

Twenty minutes in, she’d put a dent in her task, but still wasn’t finished. The little girl’s anger had fizzled out. Replaced with a wistful longing. The sun was setting, painting the sky with soft oranges, reds, and pinks. The first stars began to twinkle. Ivy paused her work to gaze longingly up at them, leaning slightly against the broom, gripping it with both hands. 

She thought of her father. How far away he was. He always seemed to be gone. Even when he was in Kansas City with them, he was always still away at the office, or the station, or the other station, or wherever his work demanded him to be. Leaving her alone to deal with her mother, her little sister, and little brother. None of whom she felt very close to. They were just around. Either ignoring her or causing problems for her. The only one who made her feel special, feel seen, was her dad. 

Ivy’s grip on the broom tightened as the familiar loneliness crept into her heart. 

  “Sometimes,” she said to no one, “I just wish I could fly away from here.” 

It was a wish she tended to make at least once a week. How was she to know this time it would be granted? 

The broom rose into the air, by itself. Ivy didn’t realize what was happening until she was suddenly suspended off the ground, hanging tightly to the wooden handle. 

A yelp escaped her. She managed to wrap her small legs around the bristles, her tail straight and puffing.

Then, incredibly, the broom bucked her like a horse. For a frightening moment, she was airborne, untethered to anything. She fell onto the handle of the broom. She only got a few seconds to sit upright and properly get a grip before the broom rocketed up into the sky like a firework. Ivy yowling the whole way. 

Chapter Text

It was his first sting operation as an agent— 

And he blew it! 

Newly minted federal agent Dominic Drago, who’d passed the training course with flying colors, now sat in the empty office of his superior, head bowed, awaiting punishment for bungling an entire operation that had taken two months to set up. He’d finally gotten his foot in the door- hell, he’d had a seat at the table since he was the one they chose to pose as a buyer for their target- and just like that, he was about to be kicked out. He’d probably set a new record for World’s Shortest Tenure in a Government Agency.

What’s worse is, he can’t even articulate what really happened during the sting. He’d done everything he was instructed to do, down to the letter. He knew he pressed the right button on the elevator for the tenth floor. He can’t explain why it didn’t stop, taking him and the target all the way to the off-limits thirteenth floor.

Much less all the strange, frightening events that happened after. 

Dom had done a stint as a beat cop before trying out for the big leagues. He thought he could handle whatever terror the world could throw at him. 

He hadn’t been prepared for the thirteenth floor of the Lady Mary Hotel. 

Thinking back on it, things really started to feel off when he walked into the elevator to go meet the target in the lobby. There was a woman on the elevator already. Dom clocked her as homeless right away. She was dressed decently enough, if one didn’t look too closely at the frayed edges of her dress, the few small tears in her coat, and the stringy texture of her unwashed black hair dangling around her shoulders from underneath a hat decorated by a wilted flower. What really gave her away was the smell. The scent of rotting meat wafted through the air during the brief ride to the ground floor. 

He supposed she was squatting on the thirteenth floor since it was closed to staff and guests alike due to ridiculous superstitions and rumors of hauntings Dom had little doubt were sensationalized greatly out of proportion. The only way to access that floor was by elevator, or by unlocking the stairwell doors. A squatter certainly wouldn’t have a key. 

Dom didn’t remember her face. It had been obscured by her hat and hair. He did remember that she’d said something to him. Some pleasantry or other, typical small talk. He didn’t acknowledge her. Not to be rude, in fact he hated being impolite for no reason, but because he’d been instructed to speak to no one except the target, unless he needed to call his team for help. They’d all be watching from the sidelines, hidden in plain sight. If things were going south, Dom need only signal and they’d pounce. 

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the hotel lobby. Dom exited the elevator casually. The woman, he noted without turning his head, did not. He knew, because he didn’t hear any clicking her heeled shoes would’ve made had she walked on the tiled floor. 

It wasn’t his problem. The hotel could take care of itself when it came to free loaders. He had a much bigger fish to fry. 

He met his target in the lobby by the bar. The man was already twitchy and anxious about something. Dom didn’t think much of it. Criminals were right to be paranoid, thinking someone was out to get them. If it pressured them into slipping up, so much the better. It made Dom’s job easier. 

As it happened, the target confessed to believing some of the stories flying around about the Lady Mary Hotel. Dom was quick to soothe those fears with a little laugh and a disarming smile. He’d been told he had an ‘earnest face,’ something he regularly took advantage of. He invited the man to talk business privately in his suite on the tenth floor. Dom felt a sweet curl of satisfaction inside as the target agreed. 

They both stepped into the vacant elevator, and Dom pushed the button numbered: 10. The stench of rotten meat still lingered. He didn’t comment on it. 

About half way up, the electric lights began to flicker. The temperature suddenly dropped. Dom felt the cold pierce through his sturdy coat to his skin beneath his grey fur. He shivered involuntarily. 

The target got agitated, his tail twitching erratically, staring up at the lights. He demanded to know what was happening. His posture screamed he wanted to run. 

Dom assured him it was likely an electrical problem, nothing more. Those things happen all the time, especially with such new technology. And for a minute the target bought it. Until the doors remained shut at the tenth floor.

After a tense minute of silence, both occupants felt the elevator continue to rise. 

Dom stared at the moving arrow above the door in disbelief as the numbers climbed higher. His stomach was sinking. 

He was off script now. He was sure it wasn’t his fault, but, depending on how things shook out from there, his superiors may not see it that way. The target beside him was a breath away from panic, and Dom was certain he was armed. 

Dom wasn’t. It would’ve raised suspicion. 

The elevator came to a halt on the thirteenth floor. There was a ding, and the doors slid open. Light spilled out of the metal box into a dark, empty hallway. Even in the low light, Dom could tell at a glance that not even the janitorial staff had visited in a while. They waited. Neither daring to breathe. But the doors would not close again. No matter how many times Dom hit the button for floor ten. Or how insistently the target mashed every button he could find after he pushed Dom aside. 

The target grew frustrated quickly and exited the lift, saying he was going to use the stairs. Knowing he couldn’t allow the man out of his sight, Dom stepped out too, informing him the stairway was locked up.

The elevator doors snapped shut, with some vague sense of finality. Both men stared, aghast. It was as if it had been waiting for them to get off. 

Dom’s ears stood at attention, keen to detect any movement. It was far, far too quiet. Even on other floors he could usually detect the subtle signs of people around, going about their lives. Here, nothing. It was completely still. The only light was coming from the rectangle at the end of the hall. A window made small by distance. 

One of the hotel rooms suddenly opened its door, eerie yellow light poured out from it. The men watched a woman walk out then stop in the hallway. It wasn’t the one Dom had met earlier. Her dress and fur color was different. He long messy blond hair tumbled down her back. The stench became stronger.

Slowly, she turned her head towards them. She was too far away for Dom to make out any of her features. His target’s fur bristled, tail going rigid. Dom had a feeling he recognized the woman. 

The target suddenly removed a revolver tucked in the back of his pants and pointed it at the woman. He fired one shot before Dom pounced and snatched the gun away from him, his training kicking in. It might blow his cover, but he couldn’t let this maniac just murder a random squatter. 

Naturally, his target wasn’t happy about being disarmed, even more so by someone who was supposed to be on his side. Dom wasn’t given much chance to defuse the situation. In the half a minute the two had been arguing, the woman had moved. The target jumped away with a start upon realizing how much closer she’d gotten. 

  “Shoot her!” He yelled, backing away, frightened. “Shoot her! She’s going to kill me!” 

Dom doubted that. Still, he angled the gun away from the woman in case she tried to make a grab for it anyway as he stepped closer to her. He asked her if she knew this man. 

It was still too dark for him to really see any distinguishing features, aside from the general location of her nose, eyes, and mouth. She opened her mouth, wide. Something black and angular wiggled out, hissing. 

Dom recoiled in horror. The thing dropped to the floor. He barely made out the crawling outline of a scorpion. Then suddenly there was another one. And another one. 

They were falling out of her dress. Others kept coming out of her mouth one at a time. Hissing and clicking their claws. 

The worst possible thing that could happen to an agent on the job happened to Dom right then: he became paralyzed with indecision.

They didn’t exactly cover women vomiting live scorpions in basic training! 

His target saw an opening. The man shoved Dom towards the woman. The agent fell forward onto the floor, dropping the revolver, his face mere inches from pinching claws and venomous stingers. The target leapt around the woman and the swarm, and sprinted down the hall. 

Dom gave up looking for the gun right away, afraid a scorpion might find his hand first. He scrambled hands over feet backwards away from the insects, desperately. His escape was cut off by the cold metal of the elevator doors meeting his back. He was powerless to do anything but watch happened next. 

The target made it as far as the light of the open door before the swarm caught up with him. They were like a living puddle of black water. Dom saw the target go down, and they were upon him, climbing all over him as he trashed and screamed. He was dragged into the room.The last thing Dom heard from him was desperate pleading. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry Beth! Please no!” 

The door swung shut by itself.

The world fell silent. 

Dom sat there in the dark, breathing heavily, his body sweating.

He hadn’t seen the blonde woman move anywhere, but he didn’t see her anymore either. If she really had a vendetta against the target, which, admittedly, seemed pretty damn likely after that, maybe the agent was okay? The woman wasn’t interested in him?

A soft click made Dom’s shoulders jump. 

The closest hotel room door slowly creaked open. An ominous red light seeped through. Wisps of mist floated into the hall. A horrific cracking noise, like wood being broken over and over, assaulted Dom's ears. The woman, the first one he’d seen in the elevator, appeared in the threshold. Her movements were sudden and jerky, as if she were a puppet whose joints were badly rusted. She seemed unable to stand upright. 

He still could not see her face. But she could see him. Instinctively, he knew that. And that she was pleased to see him.

Dom decided he did not care to find out why. He used the doors to help himself stagger to his feet, then slam his hand on the call button. It was his only hope. He didn’t think he’d make it to the stairwell door and break the door down by himself in time to save his skin. 

The thought flew through his mind: he might die if he didn’t escape right now! 

Death came with the territory of being a Federal Agent. He’d known that going in. He’d known there was a possibility of that happening tonight when he accepted the assignment for the sting operation. 

Dom also knew beyond any doubt that this was not how he wanted to leave this Earth. 

Alone, scared, desperate, trapped on an abandoned hotel floor with women he no longer believed to be feline. 

The woman’s bones creaked and popped, like her entire skeleton had been shattered under her skin. She stalked her way closer, and closer.

Dom swallowed thickly. He was scared. He would admit that. But he wasn’t going to beg to be spared. If he was going to die, he was going to die with dignity. He promised himself as he mentally prepared to fight back. 

And then, a miracle.

He heard the soft ding of the elevator behind him. The doors slid open. Dom backed into the lift the moment there was enough room for him. He hit the first floor button. He didn’t care what his team would think of him running out of the hotel with his tail between his legs, he could talk to them later if he made it. He just needed to get out!

In the light from the elevator, in those few fleeting seconds that lasted an eternity until the doors slid closed again, Dom had a clearer image of the woman. He wished he didn’t. 

Her clothes weren’t just tarnished anymore, they were covered in large blood splatters. And her face- she had no eyes. 

Dominic jumped in his seat as heard the door open behind him suddenly. It was his superior coming back into his office. Dom mentally chided himself for that. 

The Stern, older gentleman took a seat in his high wingback chair. He laced his fingers together, leaning on his desk, fixing Dom with a stare.

  “So,” he spoke at last. “You ‘got lost’ in an elevator. For four hours. And lost the target.” 

Yet another thing Dom had no explanation for. He would swear up and down the whole ordeal on the thirteenth floor had lasted barely ten minutes, and yet it was almost sunrise by the time he ran out into the street gasping for air. His teammates had spent hours searching the hotel for him, top to bottom, in the meantime. 

Dom didn’t know what to say. He scarcely believed what had happened to him himself. Any attempts to explain these supernatural events would only make him sound crazy. Loosing his new job would be bad enough. He didn’t want to get kicked into the looney bin too. 

The man in the chair sighed. “This is a serious bungle, I hope you know. You very nearly cost the team months of work.”

  “I know Sir. I apologize for…being unprofessional.” 

  “If you hadn’t received such top marks in class, and if this hadn’t been your first sting, I would have your badge on this table and you’d be out the door today.” He glared grimly across the desk at Dom. “That, and the target, unbelievably, showed up on the doorstep of the local police station. He confessed everything.” 

Dom’s lower jaw would’ve dropped to the floor if it wasn’t attached. 

  “H-He what? He’s alive?!” 

  “Yes he’s alive. And in custody. He confessed to being a part of the crime ring, selling illegal lethal poison made from scorpion venom on the black market, and to the murders of several women. I don’t know what you did to him on the thirteenth floor, but I’d recommend not roughing them up to the point they seem half mad. It doesn’t look good for us in court.” 

  “I…I’ll be sure to remember that Sir.” There was a long pause before Dom worked up the courage to ask. “Sir, were any of the women he murdered named Beth?” 

His superior thought for a moment. 

  “I believe so, yes. Beth was his wife. Funny enough, she used to work in the Lady Mary’s Hotel as a maid. That’s where he killed her using Scorpion venom.” 

Chapter Text

It was really nice, high quality paper he’d found in a pawn shop. He almost felt bad it was going to be used for just his creative musings. Notes- musical, technical, or just to himself, and the like.  Whatever he felt like putting down in the moment. On the other hand, the price was cheap. The pens he’d bought with it were more expensive. Zib figured he’d gotten a good deal for once. 

He rather forgot all about those pieces of blank paper when certain events involving his dear friend (and maybe a little more) Mitzi, and the leader of a small but powerful gang in St. Louis started happening. Zib felt the net closing around him, Mitzi, and the rest of the band. He tried to get them all away. For a brief few days, it felt like they’d escaped. Mitzi was glum about leaving Atlas May behind in the past, but she’d get over it. Only for Zib to realize he’d made a grave miscalculation, and they ended up right back in that man’s clutches. 

Mitzi accepted Atlas’ proposal to marry him. 

Zib didn’t take it well. 

On the outside, he was calm and collected. Internally, he was drowning. 

Drowning in sorrow, drowning in misery, in regret (how could he have been so stupid?!). Mourning the loss of a life he’d cherished (and perhaps took for granted). 

In the lead up to the wedding, only a few days before, Zib felt possessed to write something. There was too much settling, piling up inside him, and the liquor would not suffice. He had to let the flood gates open, else he feared he’d say something he could never take back in front of Mitzi and- him.

Zib found the paper he had long ago put away, dug up a pen, and got to work. 

He poured his heart and his soul out on to those papers. Translating them into rhymes, lyrics, and melodies. He was so hyper focused, it didn’t strike him as odd that the black ink of his pen was showing up red on the paper. 

Many hours later, Zib sat back on his hands and stretched his legs, needing to move after sitting hunched over on the floor for so long. A small glow of pride within him. He hadn’t had a good writing session like that since he first met Mitzi. He put the papers in order, stored them somewhere safe, took a nap, then proceeded with his evening. 

The night before the wedding, Zib was in a worse mood than ever. He slunk back into his apartment, sloshed. He didn’t lock the door behind him, or turn on the lights. He stumbled towards his creaky bed, flopped on top of it with the grace of a rock, and finally started weeping. 

Everything was going wrong. And he couldn’t say that because Mitzi….

She was happier than ever. 

Its soul crushing to realize the one you love is happier, maybe even better off, without you. 

Zib had no idea how much time had passed before he remembered the song he’d written. He dried his tears, and pulled himself out of bed on the second try. He had to turn a light on to read what he’d wrote, the brightness of the lamp temporarily stinging his eyes. 

It was honestly, some of his best work. The thoughts entered his mind. If he and the boys performed this at the wedding, if Zib sang every word with all his heart, then Mitzi would come to her senses. They could all run away again. Just like how they’d run away from Georgia and her dreary life there. They’d go far, far away. Somewhere Atlas would never reach them again. 

It was pure delusion and Zib knew it. He also knew he could never, ever let Mitzi see this. Or Atlas for that matter. Zib hated that he had to care so much about that man’s opinion, but there was no longer a choice. Atlas held too much power over them now. His slightest whim could make their lives a living Hell. The words on the page were too honest, too raw. He wondered what he’d been thinking putting all of that down on paper for anyone to read. Best to get rid of it. 

Zib picked up the first sheet of paper and started to tear it dow the middle. He’d barely put a rip in the top of it when a sharp pain stabbed his chest. A small cry was forced out of him. Then it was gone.

He looked around, and checked himself over, but nothing was amiss. He hadn’t been struck. Nothing was touching him. 

After a few minutes of scanning the apartment for anything suspicious, he went back to tearing the paper. He got further down before the pain roared back with a vengeance, this time bringing Zib to his knees. He dropped the page. It fluttered to the ground as he sank into a coughing fit. Gradually the pain subsided. Zib removed his hand from his mouth. 

He found droplets of his blood on his shaking palm. 

Zib stared at them, wide eyed. He looked between the blood and the paper he’d tried to tear up. 

He’d poured his heart and soul onto those papers….oh no….

  “Zib?” 

Silence answered as Mitzi let herself in to the ratty little apartment. The door wasn’t locked. Her full, red lips pouted in disappointment when she saw his empty unmade bed. She hadn’t seen him for a few days now, and neither had the guys. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for a little while without a word, but she was getting worried. Especially with the way their last conversation ended. Her storming off with a broken string of pearls, and him sitting on the dirty sidewalk with a fistful of stolen money she’d all but thrown in his face to get him to take. 

Mitzi poked around Zib’s meager possessions, hoping to find some kind of clue to where he went. She found a stack of papers neatly tucked away in a drawer. The red ink made them stand out. The top page had a tear in it, but aside from that there wasn’t a crease or a stain on any of them. She could tell right away that it was music, and written in Zib’s hand. She took them out to read. 

By the time she was finished, her mascara was ruined. The tears wouldn’t stop rolling down her rosy cheeks. She gripped the music tightly in her trembling hands, claws poking tiny holes in the paper. A storm of emotions roiled inside her. 

In a fit of outrage, she tore the papers into pieces. 

Miles away in a jail cell, Dorian Zibowski dropped dead. It was hours before anyone noticed. 

Chapter Text

New faces were few and far between in Lackadaisy since the downturn. Faces that looked like money, even less so. 

A strange man came through the double doors one evening, elegantly dressed. His suit was worth more than Mitzi’s entire collection of fine jewelry (when she had a collection). The proprietor honed in on him immediately, welcoming him to her humble establishment with Southern charm and hospitality. 

Zib went back to his sulking, half asleep at the bar. A single sliver of smoke rose from the cigarette dangling from his lips. He momentarily wondered if Mitzi was going to make this guy into the new Wick, chasing after him only for his money. Sable hadn’t been down to the Lackadaisy in days. 

Out of curiosity, he lifted his head enough to peek out from under his red hat at the man. He was still chatting with Mitzi. Then the man’s eyes met Zib’s. They were blue, like Wick’s, but sharper. Keenly intelligent. An odd feeling bubbled up in Zib’s chest that had him shrinking back under his hat, heart fluttering. 

Alright, so, the man was a looker. Zib actually felt disappointed Mitzi had gotten to him first now. ‘Course, he probably wouldn’t care to get to know Zib anyway, being a high class gentleman type. 

  “Excuse me?” The voice was smoother than vermouth. Like silk against Zib’s ears. “Is this seat taken?” 

Zib went slack jawed as he stared up at chiseled features graced by fur so velvety black it almost shined, and a suave smile. The cigarette dropped from his mouth, forgotten, along with any ability to formulate words. Only vague, timid noises would come out of Zib’s throat. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘No,’” the man chuckled. A slight accent Zib could only identify as vaguely European colored it. 

He sat down on the stool next to Zib, neat as you please. Every other stool was available, and he’d deliberately chosen that one. Zib decided the least he could do was sit up. He glanced around quickly for Mitzi, and caught sight of her walking into one of the tunnels. Nothing that way except the storage rooms. 

  “I am Caludar,” the man introduced himself, offering his hand. “I’ve come from my home country in Transylvania to expand my shipping business, and indulge in the, ah, local night life.” 

The way he said those last words sent a delicious shiver racing down Zib’s spine, to the tip of his tail. He didn’t even notice how ice cold Caludar’s hand was as he shook it, though he did pick up on the strong grip.

  “Dorizib,” he blurted, then shook his head to clear it. “I mean, Dorian. Zibowksi. Or just Zib. You can call me whichever,” his grin was crooked. “I’m a humble syncopater in the house band. Best Jazz players in town.” 

  “Really?” He seemed intrigued. Until he looked at the stage.

Zib’s bandmates were all lying around in various positions across the stage, instruments scattered, either asleep or staring vacantly up at the lime stone ceiling. He mentally kicked himself for pointing them out. 

“Are you all…on break?”

  “Yeah. Um, the boss lady’s been letting us take it easy lately since business has been a tad…slow.” 

  “Hm. I was told the Lackadaisy was the most popular of St. Louis’ speakeasies, pulsing with life.” Caludar's eyes swept across the vacant dance floor and so many empty tables and chairs. “It seems I was misinformed.”

  “It’s gotten quieter around here, sure, but, why don’t you sample the wares first before you make a final judgement.” Zib said, knowing full well their entire liquor selection was backwater swill. Unless Viktor pulled out the good stuff Mitzi kept in reserve for investors. “Viktor-“ 

Zib knew Viktor was not the biggest fan of people. However, he’d never seen the big Slovak crammed into the furthest corner of the bar, looking like a trapped grizzly bear two seconds away from snapping, before. 

“Uh, you alright there?” 

He received a deep growl in response. 

  “I do not think your large friend likes me very much,” Caludar said, amusement dancing in his tone. 

Viktor’s hulking frame grew larger as his bushy fur puffed. He bared his sharp teeth. 

  “H-He doesn’t like anyone, really.” Zib stuttered, trying to save face. “Hey how ‘bout we go….over there?” He pointed across the room to the private area that Atlas used to oversee his domain from whenever he deigned to watch a performance. Best seat in the house. “I’m pretty sure our supply guys will back soon with some fresh liquor for us, and that’s a nice comfy spot to wait in the meantime.” 

  “Wonderful idea,” Caludar nodded. 

They stood up. Caludar was at least as tall as Viktor, Zib noted as he started walking. Caludar followed, gliding more than striding, though not without throwing a smug little smirk at the bar tender first. 

Viktor wished his knees weren’t so bad. He’d leap over the bar and rip that bastard’s face off. As it was, all he could do was glare harshly, willing the man to catch fire. 

Zib’s mind was preoccupied, scrambling for topics of conversation that Caludar might like and also make him look good. Halfway to his destination, two hands fell on his shoulders. He stopped dead, feeling Caludar’s presence looming directly behind him. 

There was a low purr in his ear, “Would you like to hear a secret?”

  “I love secrets,” Zib said without thinking. He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. 

  “I’m parched.” The hands moved along Zib’s shoulders. “But I’m not thirsty for liquor. Rather, I’m seeking some new blood.” Slender fingers gently curled around the sides of his neck, making him shudder. “To keep me company.” 

The fingers slowly dragged over Zib’s fur as they pulled away. He had to hold back a mewl, heat rising under the skin of his face, heart beating fast. He turned to find Caludar’s eyes boring into his. A flicker of satisfaction in them.

“Come.”

It was not a request, nor was it a demand. It was an invitation that knew it would not be rejected. 

Zib followed behind Caludar without another word. 

Viktor watched Zib trail after the strange man like a puppy wanting pets and a treat. He sneered at their backs as they approached the double doors leading out of the Lackadaisy. Viktor knew Zib had no idea what he was getting into. If Viktor ever caught a man looking or talking to Ivy like that the man would never be seen again. Zibowski, however, was not his responsibility, and, supposedly, savvy enough to take care of himself. 

Not long after they’d left, Mitzi finally wandered back to the bar, brows furrowed. She seemed troubled, though what else was new. Her head turned side to side, scanning the Lackadaisy.

  “Viktor, where’d Mr Caludar go?” 

  “Gone,” he snorted derisively. “Took Zibowski vith him.”

  “Zib?!” She was taken aback for all of five seconds. Then sat at the bar with a pout. “Hmph. I suppose he would. Well, if it nets us a wealthy new regular, I can’t complain…much.” 

She muttered that last part under her breath. Viktor rolled his eye, not commenting otherwise. It wasn’t worth getting mixed up in. 

“It’s strange though,” she continued, unbidden. “I remember talking to Mr. Caludar, and then, nothing. All of a sudden, I was just standin’ in the middle of one of our storage rooms. I don’t even remember why I went in there.”

Neither of them said anything after that. Mitzi silently puzzling it out for herself while Viktor only wanted to get on with his job. Even if Mitzi’s observation set off an alarm bell for him. It wasn’t his problem. 

Still, something bothered the Slovak enough that he posited the question, “Vhere did he get pin?” 

  “Hm?” Mitzi’s ears perked up as she turned to him.

  “Calu-vhatever, vhere he get pin from?” 

  “Why from….Well, he,” Mitzi’s expression became taut. She huffed. “I’m sure a trusted friend passed it along to him.” 

Translation: She had no idea.

It took so much self control for Viktor not to groan out loud in frustration.

A few minutes later, another man came shuffling anxiously up to the bar.

“Horatio? What are you doing here?” Asked the lady. The Lackadaisy doorman fidgeted awkwardly with his hands.

  “I-I’m sorry I left my post without permission, it’s just- well- Please don’t be mad.”

  “Mad at what, sugar?” 

  “Well, since we don’t get many guests, I can usually count how many go inside and how many come out. Mr. Zibowski left a few minutes ago with a strange man.” Horatio looked at his feet, ears pinned back, wringing his hands. “I don’t remember letting that man inside. I don’t know if he had a club pin or not.” 

A moment of silence passed.

  “I saw you open the door for him honey,” Mitzi gestured to the entrance. Horatio’s face went blank.

  “I did? Huh. Perhaps I was mistaken.” He shrugged with a shy smile. “Sorry to have bothered you. I only did because you said I should come to you if I suspected somebody snuck in. I guess I forgot….somehow.” 

Viktor had heard enough. He tossed the towel he’d been using to clean glasses on the counter and exited the bar. 

  “Viktor?” Mitzi called after him. “Where are you going? Your shift’s not over yet.” 

  “Find Zibowski. May not be far. Caludar man no good.” 

  “What on Earth do you mean?” 

Viktor paused long enough to turn back, pointing a claw to his face, “He has killer’s eyes.” 

Outside in the early, early hours of morning, the street in front the Little Daisy Cafe was quiet as the grave. A fog had rolled in, adding a layer of dampness to all it touched. Viktor watched his chilled breath rise into the air as he stood outside the door, pondering which way he should go. There was no trail left behind to follow, and Zib hadn’t told anyone where he was going, the idiot. 

Viktor let out a long sigh, feeling foolish himself. He’d waited too long to follow. 

He knew Caludar was trouble, Viktor could practically smell the blood on the man’s hands. Viktor hadn’t said anything because, well, a portion of Lackadaisy’s clientele had always been killers. To say nothing of the employees. It came with the territory of this business. But this Caludar man-

Viktor had taken one look at him, and his mind screamed Predator!

The Slovak looked down one road, then the other, giving himself one more chance to find anything helpful. Alas, the night was peaceful. Zibowski was on his own. 

Viktor stepped back towards the glass doors of the cafe, his hand reaching for the handle when he heard something. A distant, faint cry, so weak he might’ve missed it if not for the quiet. It was full of fear. He recalled hearing many noises like that during the war, from men injured and scared for their lives. 

He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but he knew it was close. Viktor quickly walked to the corner of the cafe and peered into the alley. 

Zib’s scarlet pants made him easy to spot, even in the shadows just out of reach from the orange glow of the street lamps. He was pinned to a brick wall by something large and misshapen. Viktor could only presume it was Caludar. 

  “HEY!” Viktor shouted angrily, stalking into the alley way, claws out. 

He only made it about four paces when the thing removed its fangs from Zib to look at him. Viktor stopped cold in his tracks. The face he saw was scarcely feline, resembling something closer to a rat, or bat. Pale, icy blue eyes held him frozen in place. Viktor didn’t dare move a muscle. A long, slimy pink tongue languidly darted out from between cracked lips and pointed teeth to lap up leftover traces of blood. The mouth upturned into what had to be a smile.

Viktor’s blood ran cold.

Clawed hands released Zibowski. The musician dropped to the ground, limp and lifeless. The creature melted away into the shadows. 

Viktor stood still, body locked in place, reeling from what he’d just witnessed. He finally shook it off when he realized Zib was actually still breathing. 

 “Zibowski?” Viktor gently sat him up, examining him. 

There was a wound on the side of his neck still bleeding. His white shirt collar was stained. Viktor put his hand over it, applying pressure, hoping it would stop soon. The Slovak bent down enough to put an ear to the other’s chest. There was a weak, slow heart beat. Viktor cursed under his breath, gathering Zib up into his arms.

Seemed they were about to owe Quackenbush another favor.  As he hurried back inside the cafe, a grim dread settled over him. 

Caludar- or whatever that creature called itself- had not been afraid of Viktor when it left. He had a sinking feeling this was only the beginning. 

Chapter Text

On a college campus that was constantly claiming it had so little room to put up students, it was hypocritical, and enticingly intriguing, that one room, built for lodging, was kept perpetually vacant. No one went in. No one ever came out. Not even the cleaning staff dared to enter. Rumors abounded. 

So, perhaps it was inevitable, that after a few rounds of smuggled illicit beverages, some gossiping, some jostling, that somebody would get dared to enter the forbidden dorm room. And Ivy Pepper never backs down from a dare.

….But Helen was going with her too. As a witness, to prove she actually did it (totally not because she was scared to go by herself- that’s ridiculous!).

They waited until around after three in the morning to finally sneak down the hall of the dormitory- Ivy had a “previous engagement" that evening which kept her busy most nights. As if everyone didn’t know about her connections to a certain speakeasy in town. The door was at the very end of the corridor, easy to ignore, easier to forget. It remained stubbornly locked as Ivy twisted the doorknob. But that was fine, she had expected as much and came prepared. 

Helen pretended she wasn’t impressed (or secretly jealous) of the skills Ivy had picked up from her unscrupulous compatriots. The young lady had the lock picked and open in a few short minutes while Helen kept watch for any roaming security. With a satisfying click, they were in.

It looked just like any other dorm room on campus. The dim light through the door and windows illuminated two beds, two dressers, and a few chairs. Except for the layers of dust and cobwebs over everything, it was disappointingly mundane. The newest, or, maybe, least old, item was a large steamer trunk left in the very middle of the room. As if whoever left it behind wanted someone to find it. 

  “I’ll check it out,” Helen declared in a whisper. “You close the door.”

Ivy huffed and was about to snark that if it was locked Helen would need her anyways, but decided to let her stubborn classmate figure that out on her own. Helen eagerly made straight for the trunk while Ivy turned to close the door as softly as possible. 

There was writing on the back of the door. Desperately scrawled across the white wood by hand, she thought it was paint at first. After spending so much time with criminals and the types of messes they made, icy fear gripped her when she realized it was dried blood. In the low light of evening, she could just make out the message:

THE TRUNK IS A TRAP 

Ivy spun around, “Helen!”

It was too late. 

Helen was kneeling in front of the trunk when the lid tipped open wide. It revealed huge sharp teeth, and a long pink tongue. The poor girl didn’t even get a chance to scream before the box-shaped creature lurched forward. Its mouth clamped down on her head and torso, teeth cutting into her waist. 

Her legs kicked wildly, her tail thrashed. Ivy could do nothing except stare in utter horror, her back pressed to the wall. 

The monster opened its mouth again. The tongue slithered out to coil around Helen’s legs. The rest of her was pulled into the maw. The jaws shut. Ivy heard sickening crunching noises. The trunk expanded and contracted as if it were breathing. She was too scared to draw a single breath. 

It carried on like that for what felt to the student like a torturous eternity, though in reality, only about a minute. Then, the trunk went still. As if it was a normal piece of luggage. And hadn’t just devoured Helen like a midnight snack. 

Ivy stared at it, unable to unglue herself from the door. 

The silence was shattered by an unmistakable belch that made Ivy’s bones rattle. 

The lid popped open, flashing its teeth one more time. Two little objects flew out and went bouncing across the carpet. They came to rest in front of Ivy.

Helen’s slippers. 

That did it. 

Ivy could take no more.

She turned, threw the door open, and ran all the way back to her dorm room, not caring a bit if anybody saw her. She leapt into her bed, pulling the covers tight over her head. 

This was all just a bad dream, she told herself. When she woke up, Helen would be there, alive in their dorm, annoyed at Ivy for sleeping in as usual. When the sun came up, everything would be normal. Everything would be okay again. She just had to go to sleep to wake up. 

Morning came. Helen was still gone. 

Chapter Text

She met him at the funeral. 

April, a friend from college, along with her family and several other people had all tragically been killed in a fire at April’s large family home. It happened the night they were hosting a party. Many guests sustained injuries too. 

Officially, the fire was ruled as accidental, but everyone knew the firemen were stumped for an origin. Ivy stood dressed in all black, her face hidden behind a veil, head bowed, beside everyone else who’d come to mourn. She couldn’t say she and April were good friends exactly, yet Ivy felt very real tears as they rolled down her cheeks.  

Ivy hadn’t gone to that party. She’d wanted to, oh so badly she’d wanted to. But, Lackadaisy’s call was louder. She was needed for a job. She couldn’t refuse the adventure of rum-running when it beckoned, she’d wanted to be a bigger player in the organization ever since she was little. She’d go to the next Mummy Unwrapping Party. They were all the rage right now. Another one was bound to turn up sooner or later. 

Ivy’s mind played through one scenario after another, trying to unravel the mystery for itself. She wondered, if she had gone, could she have helped save her friend? Or would she be in a box now too, being lowered into the cold, dark, Earth to spend eternity with the worms? 

He was standing away from the group, in the shade of a tree, observing from a distance. Nobody acknowledged him. She assumed that meant nobody knew him. He was rather peculiar looking with distinctively shaped black patterns around his eyes, standing out against his chestnut brown fur, though far from unattractive. Ivy took it upon herself when the ceremony was over to walk up and say hello. 

His name was…Horace. Horace DeNile. Or, that was the English name he went by at least. His real name was Egyptian, as was his country of birth, and he’d found Americans annoyingly inept at pronouncing it. So, he’d settled on Horace. 

The young man was charming, sweet, and clever. They talked the whole rest of the day. Ivy barely noticed the time passing until the sun was already setting. She had somewhere she needed to be. As part of his farewell, he gently took her hand and raised it to his lips to bestow a soft, feathery kiss. Just like the princes in her old fairy tale books. Ivy blushed like mad, flattered beyond belief. She almost missed the dirty looking bandages wrapped tightly around his arm, hidden in his sleeve. 

She asked at once if he’d been injured. Horace brushed it off, citing a little accident not long ago, but nothing serious. He promised they’d meet again soon. Ivy’s insides danced. She could hardly wait. 

Ivy saw Horace many times in the following days after. So much so that she realized she had a dilemma: She was in love with two different boys. And she had a feeling neither of them would be open to the idea of a ‘bohemian’ relationship. Which meant, she was going to have to choose one over the other. Freckle? Or Horace? 

She’d thought she’d been making good progress with Freckle. He was timid, and shy, but with a ferocious side underneath just clawing to get out! He also listened to everything she said without judging her, and nearly always did whatever she asked of him. He was almost perfect! Almost. It’s just, she’d noticed, only she was putting any work into them being a couple. Freckle never complained, or objected to anything, but he never initiated anything either. It was always Ivy coming up with ideas for dates, or choosing to hold hands, or kiss. Freckle never turned her down, and that was nice. However, it made her wonder if he really liked her, or was just too frightfully polite to refuse her. If that was the case, then, was she not special to him? 

Horace, she knew very little about. Even after spending so much time with him, he was exceedingly good at eluding answering questions about his past beyond he was Egyptian, and born into substantial wealth. A point her family would favor, she had no doubt. He was also, to her knowledge, not involved in any crime related businesses. Another point her family would be relieved to hear. That didn’t mean Horace wasn’t dangerous. Ivy had a nose for these kinds of people. Admittedly, it was part of his appeal. While Freckle went feral, Horace had a more calculative, controlled rage that he would release like the plagues of the Old Testament upon whomsoever incurred his wrath. He reminded her of Mordecai in that way. 

Ivy puzzled over it for hours at a time. She liked both of them so much. It was driving her crazy. 

She finally decided to ask the advice of her Godmother, Mitzi. 

It essentially boiled down to a cryptic, “Whichever one cares for you the most, darlin’.” 

Ivy didn’t know if that was good advice or not. It sounded obvious on the face of things. 

After thinking about it for a while, Ivy decided she would ask both boys a question: How would they feel about her breaking things off to date someone else? 

She asked Freckle first. 

He answered point blank that he’d be fine with it. If that’s what she wanted. 

It confirmed all of Ivy’s worst fears about him. She wasn’t special to him at all! Not if he’d give her up so easily. Without putting up a fight or anything! 

Freckle sensed right away he’d said something to upset her. He had no idea what though, and could only anxiously babble half coherently as she stormed out of the cafe, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. 

She went straight to Horace, at their usual meeting place in the park. He immediately offered her a handkerchief when he saw her crying. She asked him the same question. 

Horace’s answer was swift and sure. He’d kill anyone who tried to take her away from him. She was the only good thing to come out of this terrible, backwards, modern world, and it wounded him to think of her being corrupted by one of its begotten curs. In fact….

Horace dropped to one knee. Ivy’s head was spinning. She felt like she was in a dream as he pulled out a small black box and opened it to reveal a ring, crafted to resemble a falcon in flight. He asked her to join him by his side for eternity in Paradise. 

How could she say no? 

Life is but a dream~ goes the old nursery song. 

Horace wanted to marry that night and whisk her away. She was happy to go, but she wanted her family and friends to attend the ceremony too. Horace rejected the notion entirely, stating they were all corruptive influences on her. They were better off without. Ivy….found herself hesitant to protest. Which was odd. She’d had a very clear idea of how she’d wanted her wedding to go for years, but she supposed Horace knew what he was doing. 

The last place she’d expected her wedding to be was inside the burnt and twisted remains of the mansion that previously belonged to the family of her deceased friend. But the people there didn’t seem to mind it one bit, and they’d decorated. The place didn't look run down at all anymore, so, she guessed it was okay. She didn’t recognize any of their faces. They said they were Horus’ attendants, and hers too now. A few of the women walked her to an undamaged room to help her get dressed for the ceremony. The wedding dress was beautiful, sparkling white with gold and lapis lazuli trim. It fit perfectly. 

The Ballroom was resplendent. Ivy held a bouquet of lilies in her hands as she walked down the aisle, music drifting through the air. Horace was waiting for her atop a short flight of stairs at an alter. Instead of an arch decorated in flowers and garlands, there was a long stone slab, and a separate table holding various instruments that appeared to be of the medical variety, and a series of funny looking jars, each with a lid shaped like an animal head. 

Horace himself was the most striking figure of all. He wore no tuxedo, instead he was wrapped head to toe in white bandages, a short skirt tied around his waist, he wore ornate golden armbands, and a brilliant golden mask shaped exactly like his face. He stood tall and proud as Ivy gracefully ascended the steps to meet him, the picture of beauty. She couldn’t see his face behind the painted dark eyes, but she knew he was beaming. 

The music lilted to a stop. Horace took a minute to speak to the gathered audience, Ivy listening at his side serenely. He talked about how he’d been kidnapped across the sea by English demons and sold like cattle to be mocked. His Earthly remains used as mere party favors. He unleashed his wrath that evening upon the fools, damning their souls to the Underworld. His revenge sated, he would’ve returned to his rest much sooner, had he not met this lovely flower that stood before them all now. She was different from the other modern people, and he stayed longer, just for her. Hoping to convince her to be his bride, and join him in Paradise. In the afterlife. Ivy, had graciously accepted his marriage proposal, and now here they stand together. All has been prepared. He, Lord Horus, would see to the mummification process himself to ensure Ivy received a smooth transition. 

Cheers and applause echoed within the ballroom. An attendant came up and kneeled before Horace, bowing their head. They offered a small velvet cushion, an ornate, recent sharpened dagger resting upon it. Horace picked it up. Reverently, he held it between both hands as he in turn offered it to Ivy. 

Ivy knew what she had to do without being told. 

Her hand grasped the hilt. She aimed the point of the blade inward, at herself. She held it with both hands, reading herself to plunge the blade into her-

Wait…..What was she doing?…..She didn’t want to die…. 

The thought froze Ivy to the spot. Her muscles all locked in place. She stared across the river of faceless people almost blankly. Distantly, she heard Horace giving her words of encouragement. 

She nodded. Tightened her grip on the dagger and-

Hesitated again. 

She didn’t want this. 

Horace was suddenly right behind her, his arms encircling her as he put his hands over top hers.

He said, “We’ll do it together.” 

Ivy felt a wave of relief crash into a wave of dread inside her, warring with each other. She wasn’t going to have time to think about what that meant as Horace raised the dagger in her hands to-

A bright light suddenly flooded in from the ballroom windows, causing Horace to pause. 

The next second, glass shattered, and there was a mighty crash as the Struggle Buggy smashed through the windows like an enraged bull. Attendants shrieked, leaping out of the way as rubber tires screamed, sliding against the marble floor before coming to a halt. The driver side door opened.

  “WE OBJECT!” Rocky declared before promptly face planting on the floor, having slipped on debris. 

Freckle kicked open the passenger side and hopped out, a wild gleam in his eyes as he brandished the tommy gun. His fiery gaze met hers. 

  “Ivy?!” 

  “Freckle!” Smiling, she unconsciously moved towards him. Horace held her back. 

She saw a fury come over Freckle like none she’d witnessed before. 

  “Get away from her you-  uh, you- “ 

  “Claybrain gutted, knotty-pated fool, wretched, obscene, greasy, tallow-catch!” Rocky supplied energetically. 

  “Y-Yeah that!” Freckle gestured to his cousin. “What he said!” 

Horace stepped forward, Ivy could sense the anger radiating from him. She realized with a start that his appearance had changed. His white bandages had become no better than tattered, dirty rags, barely clinging to rotting flesh beneath. She saw bones peeking between gaps of skin in his tail. 

Having snapped out of whatever haze she'd been in, Ivy took in the ballroom for what it really was. The sad, half burnt remains of what used to be a proud, luxurious estate. Occupied by a horde of hideous skeletal ghouls. 

  “How dare you interrupt this sacred ritual!” Horace’s voice boomed like thunder. “Attack them my minions! Kill them!” 

  “No!” Ivy’s cry was all but drowned out by the collective, unholy scream of the undead as they lurched at Freckle, claws outstretched, mouths open impossibly wide, baring gnarled teeth. Freckle’s tommy gun sang its own fast paced familiar song in response. The skeletal bodies dropped to the floor, writhing for a few seconds…then got up again.

Bullets could only delay the inevitable. 

Ivy yelled at Horace to make them stop. Those were her friends! The golden death mask turned to her, assuring her that all would be well. Once the interlopers were gone, the ceremony could proceed as planned-

The mask suddenly turned to the side, yanked by Rocky, and temporarily blinding Horace. There came muffled angry shouts, Horace stumbled a few steps, reaching up at whatever had done this. Rocky danced away and grabbed Ivy’s hand. 

  “Time to go Miss Pepper! Your get-away-vehicle awaits!” He grinned. 

The two dashed to the car and scrambled inside. Rocky started the engine. Freckle sat in the passenger seat, keeping the door open to continue firing until the last second as the car started moving. 

Horus finally wrenched his head free from his mask, throwing it to the ground, shattering it. A guttural bellow ripped from his throat when he saw what was happening. 

Rocky laid on the speed, foot down on the accelerator. The Struggle Buggy plowed over the undead and rammed through the weak ballroom double doors to careen down a dilapidated corridor. As the car barreled through the house, leaving damage in its wake, the structure began to crumble more and more. Until the whole mansion started falling down around them. 

All three of them held their breath. Rocky swerved sharply in one direction, then the other, to avoid chunks of ceiling falling down in front of them. Everything felt like it was rattling uncontrollably! As if the vehicle was threatening to come apart around them! Clouds of dust erupted from all sides. 

Suddenly, the car burst through the front doors, launching itself off the steps into the air. The fall felt like forever, as if time had slowed to a crawl. Sparks flew from the nose of the car as it scraped against the gravel of the driveway, but the Struggle Buggy kept going. 

The mansion collapsed into a giant cloud of dust and debris behind them. 

It was eerily quiet as they traveled down the long driveway to the road. After all that noise and movement it almost felt unreal. Yet, the silence helped them catch their breath. 

  “Freckle!” Ivy turned to him, eyes dancing, smiling wide. “You fought for me after all!” 

  “Uh,” he gulped. “Yeah, of course. I didn’t want you to die.” 

  “You battled an entire horde of mummy monsters for me! That was so brave!”

  “I was there too, y’know,” Rocky grumbled. 

  “And I’ll see to it that Viktor doesn’t give you any grief for a whole three months,” Ivy hugged him. “Thanks Rocky.” 

Rocky was too overjoyed to speak, his tail wagging rapidly. 

“I’m just glad that’s all over now. And you and I can get back to business McMurray,” she smirked. “I knew I was special to you.” 

Freckle’s ears flattened shyly, he twiddled his thumbs for a few seconds, looking down. 

  “Uh-huh.” 

  “Freckle.” 

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m special to you, aren’t I?” Ivy hated the desperation that crept into her voice. But she needed to know. 

Nobody would go through all that just for a friend would they?

Freckle pieced together his thoughts, and took a breath. 

  “Ivy, you mean a lot to me. A whole lot more than most people do. I like being around you. You make me feel…like…less of a terrible person. Like I can be sort of normal around other people. In that way, you’re very special to me. So, if you think you’d be happier with another guy than with me, of course I wouldn’t stop you. I just want you to be happy.” 

Ivy was speechless. Something clicked into place in her mind, and she didn’t know how to react yet. She and Freckle stared into each others eyes. 

A loud, heavy thud came from the roof of the car. All three peered upwards at it in question. 

Something big suddenly landed on the hood of the car. Horus’ horrifying decaying, skeletal face, eyes red and blazing like hot coals, hissed at them from the other side of the windshield. They all screamed. Rocky hit the brakes. Horus raised one fist, then punched through the glass, shattering it, sending shards flying into the wind.

Freckle was seized by the throat. Horus yanked him right out of his seat, then jumped clear. The car swerved, coming dangerously close to rolling over as it tipped onto the two left side wheels. It finally screeched to a stop, and gravity righted the vehicle. 

Rocky let out a gasp of relief. 

  “Freckle!” Ivy shouted, scrambling out of the car. 

Freckle, through being half choked and cut in places, had managed to keep hold of his weapon. The mummy held the smaller man above the ground, snarling viscously at its prisoner. 

Freckle snarled back. Then poured all the remaining ammunition he had left into that putrid monster. 

Holes appeared. The mummy even seemed to bleed. By the end, half its lower jaw was hanging by a scrap of flesh from its skull. Freckle was still breathing heavily. The gun only making useless clicking noises as he kept pulling the trigger, as if hoping somehow there was still a little more left. 

The mummy grasped its dangling jaw, and, quite simply, reattached it. Freckle had no idea how. All he was certain of in that moment was that this thing was not going down! 

Freckle felt ice in his veins as it glared at him. He no longer had any way to defend himself. The mummy wrapped its other hand around his throat and squeezed. Freckle dropped the gun, needing his hands to claw desperately at the pair holding him captive, cutting off his vital airways. His lungs burned. He kicked wildly. Little by little, his vision was starting to black out. 

Then, all of a sudden, he was let go. The mummy shrieked loudly into the night as Freckle fell heavily to the ground. He coughed as his lungs greedily gulped down much needed air. His vision cleared just enough to see the tip of a blade, glinting in the moonlight, protruding from the mummy’s chest. Approximately, where a heart would be. 

The creature collapsed, a dagger in its back. Ivy was revealed. 

She looked to Freckle first, checking that he was okay. Then she knelt next to the mummy, helping it rest on its back. She gazed at the rotting face sadly. The eyes no longer blazed as they beheld her. 

Ivy took the ring off her finger. She pressed it into one of Horus’ palms and held his hand. 

  “I’m sorry Horace, but I belong here, in the modern world, with modern people. Please, return to your paradise, and rest.” 

The light in the dark eye sockets dimmed until it blinked out of existence. With a deep sigh, the corpse transformed into dust, the particles carried away on the wind. 

A different silence fell after. As if the whole world could breathe easily again. The breeze rustled the leaves of nearby trees as the moon hung peacefully in the sky amongst twinkling stars and silvery clouds. 

Freckle opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a surprised “Oof!” as Ivy almost tackled him to the ground in a tight hug. 

“I’m so sorry!” She sobbed against him. “This whole mess was my fault!” 

Freckle hugged her back, trying to soothe her, “What? No. No it’s not Ivy.” 

  “It is! I thought someone being in love with you meant they’d do whatever it took to be with you. Even fighting other people over you.” She sniffled. Ivy pulled back enough to meet Freckle’s eyes, full of concern and receptive. “I was wrong. That’s just possessive. It took almost getting married to a dead guy and turned into a mummy for me to realize that. And it almost killed you too!” 

  “But…it didn’t. And how could a mummy going on a rampage possibly be your fault? He did everything himself.”

Freckle carefully brushed his thumbs against Ivy’s cheeks, wiping away warm tears. He held her head gingerly. Ivy melted into his touch, smiling softly. Their noses were inches apart as they gazed deeply into each others eyes….

  “Awww,” came a coo from the night. The two looked to see Rocky standing nearby with his hands clasped, grinning ear to ear. “You two are adorable!” 

Chapter Text

The door slammed, accompanied by loud British swearing. 

It startled Abelard, sitting in his favorite armchair in the living room. He almost dropped the cigarette in his hand. Bobby stormed into the room, revolver clutched in his hand. He plopped heavily down into his own chair of choice, discarding the gun on a nearby table like it was worthless, then dropped his head into his hands. Tired exasperation radiated from him. 

Abelard waited a few seconds before speaking the obvious. 

  “Things did not go well then, I take it.” 

  “The damn beast wouldn’t die!” Bobby slammed both fists against his chair with a fury Abelard rarely saw from him. “I shot it five times! Five! And it didn’t die! It shook it off and ran away from me like it was nothing.” 

Bobby stewed angrily. His brother-in-law observed him quietly.

  “Perhaps it’s time we called-“ 

  “NO!” Bobby snapped with so much ferocity it made the fire and brimstone preacher shrink back. “This is our problem! It has to be us who destroys it. For Elsa…” 

The British man trailed off sadly. He stared into the burning fire crackling in the hearth. Abelard thought for a few minutes, debating something in his mind. It allowed Bobby to cool down a bit. Finally he sighed.

  “I might have a way to kill the beast,” he said slowly. Bobby’s head whipped towards him. “I don’t know for certain if it will work.” 

  “We’ve got to try,” insisted Bobby. 

  “We’ll need to go to the church.” 

One late night car ride in the hearse later, Abelard was unlocking the door to the little church of Defiance, his brother-in-law behind him. They slipped inside, and Abelard led the way to his small, tidy office where he unlocked a cabinet. He withdrew a small box from it and gave it to Bobby. 

Bobby opened the lid. A puzzled expression painted his face. 

  “Bullets?”

  “Silver bullets,” the preacher clarified. “This beast is of an unholy, demonic nature. These are made of a material known to eradicate such threats, and have been sanctified.” 

Bobby seemed skeptical, but nevertheless, loaded the six bullets into his revolver.

An unearthly noise pierced the quiet of the church. A long, drawn out howl from somewhere outside. It chilled Abelard to his bones.

  “The beast!” Bobby hissed. “It followed us here!” 

  “Oh. Dear Lord,” Abelard murmured and crossed himself. 

  “You stay inside. I’ll take care of this.” 

Bobby’s old soldier training kicked in as he crept into the night, revolver in hand, at the ready. Long dormant instincts came alive again. His eyes scanned for movement. His ears pointed up, alert for any noises, taking care to pay attention to any sounds from behind him.

He was primed and expecting ambush. So, it came as kind of a shock that the beast suddenly just appeared some thirty feet in front of him, emerging from the corn crops. 

It was big, stalking on all fours, Bobby could just make out the impressive size of the claws in the light of the full moon. Its fur was a pale gold color. It stared at Bobby with frigid blue eyes. 

For a few seconds, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even breathe. 

Then he thought of Elsa. 

His rage came roaring back. He fired the revolver. The first shot found its mark, burying itself in the beasts shoulder. A high pitched whine escaped its maw. He’d wounded it this time. 

Bobby wasted no time firing off four more shots, saving the last bullet just in case. 

The huge animal writhed in pain as if it were on fire, flailing in the grass before, with a final, mournful cry, it went still.  

Bobby began to approach it carefully. The body suddenly trembled, then shifted somehow. It shrank. Its shape changed. When it stopped, he realized he was staring at the naked body of a dead woman. 

It was Elsa. 

At first, Bobby refused to believe what he was seeing with his own eyes. When he got closer, when he fell to his knees beside her, it was undeniable. His heart shattered. He cradled her in his arms, weeping like a child, begging for forgiveness. Though he knew, he would never forgive himself. There was only one thing he could do to make amends. 

He laid Elsa down gently in the grass, then sat beside her. He clasped one of her hands in his. In his other hand, he lifted the revolver to his temple. Bobby looked up at the moon for the last time. 

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

He pulled the trigger. 

Abelard kneeled before the alter, alone in the Hall of Worship, head bowed and hands clasped in prayer. He spoke softly and eloquently. His voice the only sound in the room. 

He’d heard the shots ring out from outside some few hours ago. Bobby still had not returned. 

He had a nauseating, gut wrenching, feeling of dread. He feared what he would find when he walked out of the church. So he prayed harder than he’d ever prayed in his life, pleading to be wrong. Hoping things had gone differently. 

When the sun came up, he’d go look. Abelard didn’t want to face whatever was waiting for him out there in the dark.