~~Jack~~
"Guys, guys! We need to stick around and figure out all we can." He tried to get out of their grip, but it wasn't going to happen. Fiona had a good grip for a small girl, and Damien had fifty years of his second life in seniority. Struggling was pointless, but he wasn't about to throw this opportunity away. Sandbagging was the best option he had, so he let his bodyweight succumb to gravity. Unfortunately, they were both strong enough to drag him, regardless.
"Jack, you pride yourself on your reasoning, yes?" Damien said.
"... I do, yeah." Fuck. Already knew where Damien was going with this, but he didn't want to hear it right now.
"I know figuring what to do about this ritual thing targeting you is a top priority. But, we're in over our heads. We saw what we came to see, but—"
"Azamel's warning is—"
"Has nothing to do with the hunter ritual." Damien shook his head, as he looked back over his shoulder at Jack. "We have an idea now of what's going on, so we should get out of here. Report, meet up with Jessy, delicately avoid talk of mysterious warnings, and mention Azamel's explanation of where the ritual came from."
"... fine."
Fiona, giggling and almost jumping in spot, helped him back to his feet. Turning fear into excitement was a skill she had in droves. "Come on! Who knows what... what..."
Jack stood up, and turned around to face the direction Fiona and Damien were taking him. There'd be something bad ahead, something that warranted Fiona's pause, something that was going to make Damien right, and make Jack regret his one moment of spontaneity.
"Uh oh, uh oh." Sky came up behind them, and flapped a feather over their heads. "Leave, better leave!" And leave it did, flapping both wings and catapulting itself into the air, abandoning the three little monsters to find a perch on higher ground. That was fine, Jack couldn't blame any bird for escaping at the moment of danger, that's what birds did. But at the same time, he was really wishing the bird would have taken them with it.
They came out of the street, out of the cracks of shadow running along the uneven asphalt, out of the corner where building met pavement, out of the rainy windowsills, and out of the shadows cast by warped benches. Red bits of wavy fog leaked out of crevices, as if someone was smoking, and blowing puffs of crimson cloud. With each wave of the fog that crept out onto the street in front of the three; hissing began, quiet and taunting. Drip, drip, splashes of red liquid fell to the street, before disappearing into nothing, wisps of more red smoke, while entities began to form.
Most definitely not the sex spirits he had seen in Dolareido.
The red things had streaks of black moving through them, or streaks of red moving through masses of black; hard to tell as the two colors mixed and fought for surface area. But with time, it was apparent something black, something that looked like tar dancing with smoke, was draped in red which ran like blood. Drip, drip. The red things had human-like torso shapes, but without distinguished features; legs as solid as cigarette smog. With time, long claws of black crept out of their hands, subtle but massive. Worse were the eyes, glowing white eyes, slitted and slanted. Demon eyes.
And there was a dozen of them.
"Someone... tore open... verge... who?" One of the strange, hovering spirits came forward from the group, and looked at them.
And that was enough for the weight of its presence to hit them. The three of them took a step back, and Jack gulped as he felt the ice in his stomach start to form. He stared into the eyes of the demon creature, until the bent streetlights started to flicker on and off, aware of the eye contact. Shit, shit, shit. As if the city itself was not happy about the creatures, the streetlights warped, bending away from their city-center hope, away from the hovering entities. The shadow was powerful as the lights began to turn off, one at a time; each a flicker, then a dying gasp, before it was gone.
As the strange spirits spread out to cover Jack's exit back to the 'verge', darkness settled on them, until only the moon and its unsteady light offered them vision. Fiona might be able to see in total darkness, but Damien and Jack would be fucked. It hadn't come to that, but it was getting a little too close for comfort.
Damien and Fiona nudged Jack in the back of his shoulders. Oh, right. Now that everything was going to shit, he was the ambassador, again. If it wasn't his fault for them getting caught, he'd have kept his mouth shut. Well, would have liked to, but the situation wasn't giving him any options.
"Um, uh... verge?" he said.
The strange, shadowy figure of obsidian death and bleeding crimson, gestured to the wall of the factory the three intruders had come from. "Black Blood has claimed this." The choir of entities hissed, one or two of them shrieking. The sound stirred the rat-like black blobs that ran along the building perimeters nearby, and sent them darting into whatever hole they could find.
"Black Blood has no claim to the old verges!" Sky squawked from his perch on a rooftop, and clawed at the roof edge a few times. "They're from before!"
The dark spirit in front of its brethren moved forward again, without a glance to the bird. "You... you two are Kindred. Dead things. Useless. But you..." It drifted toward Fiona, closer, drip drip of something very blood-like creating a trail behind it. "Skin. Sinew. Bone. Organs. Muscle. Fat. Let us see."
"Oh, I dinnae think so!"
So much for diplomacy. Before Jack could reach out, stop her from turning a bad situation worse, the woman let out her monster.
The giant spider creature, the woman of blades, of horns covering the top half of her face like an elegant mask combining into a crown, of spikes for feet and fingers, of silk and shadow, slashed out. A flicker of shadow in the already dim light was easy to miss, but Jack knew what to look for. The blades Vrall used weren't for slashing, they were for stabbing, like an estoc sword. A very, very, very long estoc.
Either the strange spirits didn't recognize what Fiona was, or they underestimated her, and how quick she'd be to throw the first punch. Eight blades upon long, smooth, sectioned spider legs stabbed out, cracking the air with a snap, and stabbing into each spirit, through their chests; if that was a chest, on top of their legs of smoke. It must have been, because the eight creatures all let out a weird shriek, distorted with ear-splitting nails-on-chalkboard shrill sounds.
The eight of them fell to the ground. And then, started to get back up.
"Warned." One of them said, spreading out, body disappearing into the shadow of a nearby bench.
"Warned about the Begotten." Another, one getting up from the wound, stood before them, fearless. The hole in its chest showed only more of the black and red smoke that made its body, and the hole was closing back up.
"Begotten opened the door, without permission." Another moved toward the building on Damien's left, and its body pressed to the brick, flatter than it should have been able to. As it moved toward them, shadow spread out from where its body merged with the building, burying it and the surrounding asphalt in billowy onyx for a dozen feet. A smokescreen of bleeding tar. "Kill Begotten."
Ok, yeah, that sounded bad. Sounded like they didn't want Begotten opening doors that were otherwise locked. Sounded like covering up their tracks. Sounded like Black Blood was giving these things orders, too? He'd ask, but doubted they'd answer.
Jack stepped away again, drawing his pistol and sword, and began firing. No reason to be diplomatic at this point. "Shit. Shit shit shit. Plan?"
"Escape." Damien mirrored him. Though his weapons were already drawn, he wasted no time following Jack's lead, sinking bullets into the spirits.
The dozen spirits scattered, becoming smoke on the wind. Their eyes and enormous claws remained solid, but their bodies did not, half opaque as they took to the sky. The one against the building jumped for Damien, one set of claws slicing up through the asphalt like butter. But, a need for melee meant Damien had little trouble putting a bullet through the creature's head, sending it toppling to the street, at his feet.
It started to get up, hole in its head filling in with a mix of the black tar, and crimson mist.
No one wanted to say it, but none of them knew anything about spirits. Jack was starting to learn a thing or two, but ultimately, he had no idea if spirits were immortal, or if guns and swords could kill them. And these spirits kept getting back, even as Jack and Damien continued to sink bullets into them. Another one dived at them, this one from the front, and Jack sank six bullets into its chest before it went down. It too started to get up, slowly but surely.
"Run!" Sky said, and it took to the air and flew away. Typical bird.
Ok, he took it back. Jack wouldn't blame a bird for running at the first sign of trouble. Strangle Mulder and Scully when you get back, just because.
Damien tapped him on the shoulder, and nodded his head back toward the path behind them. Empty street, no movement as far as Jack could see, and the curved streetlights pointed the way toward South Side. He was afraid to see what South Side might look like in this strange Shadow world, and it was a good mile or two run from here, anyway. Kindred could do that, no need for air, but could Fiona? It seemed like she couldn't transform into her horror, not completely, not unless she was in a nightmare.
