"I just wanted to help you." I screamed over the noise. "Why are you doing this?"
The top hinge ripped off and the door bent down only holding at the lock and bottom hinge. The girl howled inhumanly and squeezed her head through the opening and pushed. I watched as her shoulder became trapped and in a fury she pushed onwards and with a sickening crack the shoulder presented a problem no more and with it hanging uselessly she slipped head first to the floor falling in a pile of limbs. I kicked out as she got to a kneel, her head deformed in where the skull had fractured but this and her dislocated arm showed no sign of hindering her progress. My kick landed on her good shoulder and she tried to reach for me with her bad which swung uselessly with no muscle control. She looked straight at me and snarled through gnarled teeth. She launched herself forward and I screamed.
*
The week started off so well, no, having this time to think it didn't. I was involved in a workplace related incident and knocked over by a bolt of power pulsed out from an inherited wizard’s staff that violently rejected its new owner in favour of his sister: From there I was bored rigid by suburban anecdotes, blind drunk with the hang-over to match and attacked TWICE by a crying lady who I now know was at least a part bird. Then dragged through the woods, buried under a mound, met an elder god - or someone who thought he was. Made tea for an Angel, Doubled up on my time with crazed bird-women and then sent on an all inclusive holiday to Hotel Death-trap. The worst thing about all these memories was most of them haven't in all actuality happened to me yet! Not the actual me still in the hospital. What day is it now? Saturday? If I get out of this in enough pieces to walk and operate as close to sanity as normal I have a good mind to march straight to the hospital to save myself all the pain and bother. I wonder if I'm on double time for all the work I'm accomplishing by being in two places at once - that or I must be the world champion at multi-tasking.
They say in moments like this past experiences are displayed across the memory in an attempt for the brain to sort through successful processes covering similar situations with the aim formulate a plan based quantifiable information on which to formulate a solution to escape from the current near death situation - but this kind of thing is happening so often now all I get are repeats.
She was on me and I was surprised by her strength maintaining her forward momentum even in her disabled state but there was a distinct lack of physical weight which I had to turn to my advantage. I had raised my legs up and the soles of my feet caught her across the chest as she fell upon me and I kicked up using my back on the floor to allow my thighs to power up and push. The girl raked at the air with her good hand, broken bloodied nails narrowly missing my skin as I propelled her backwards and away. Throughout she screamed nonsense in a language I could not identify or understand, it had as much chance as being Babylonian as it did being a collection of random vowels and continents.
I had a couple of seconds grace to gather my thoughts and prepare before this thing was back on the attack; her arm hanging and swaying with the body movement. She looked so young and behind the bloodied face and bruises she had been outstandingly beautiful. She could have had an amazing life stretching far into the future, her body even now in its pungent state was perfect, the type I was so jealous of through adolescence with thin waist, curved behind and large round breasts; and now she was here, locked away and driven mad in this state of the utter squalor and I knew, right here and now only one of us was going to get out of this room alive. I braced myself for the oncoming storm.
She was on me again and her one good arm grabbed at me with a force that ripped two of her nails out in the pinch she had. I screamed as loud as she, building within my my resolve and strength. And then I kicked, scratched and fought back with everything I could as explosively as I could in my hampered position lying as I was on my back on the floor. Her head came down at my neck and then.......the fight went out of her and the near nothingness of her weight rested on me and then I felt it, a thud that hit me through her and then she was rising horizontally. Xanthic had grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and waist and threw her hard against the wall and with a sickening collection of crunches and breaks her mashed body fell to the floor with a head as open as a crushed melon. On the floor next to his feet was another stake with which he had used, bat style, to come to my aid. He raised me to my feet with a tremendous pull on my outstretched arm and I hugged him crying uncontrollably. I could not see, but I heard Adym slam the door of the room closed and lean heavily against it to ensure it was shut tight. He was crying also, big gasps of sound and tears slashing on the laminate floor.
"What is going on!" it wasn't a question but I asked it anyway. The light from the pen-light was shining against the bottom row of cages and although I could assume why the girl was locked up I could not understand how she had got to that position. Xanthic pulled me tighter into the hug totally out of character and this in itself worried me as much as it comforted.
"I don't understand what happened? Why did she attack me when I tried to free her? I asked with my face against the coat which felt warm and leathery and smelt of musk, in a good way.
"I don't know, she may have thought you were one of her captures and attacked with all the strength of lost hope; but I don't think she was fully human, not anymore."
"And at least you came the quick way without having to walk through the nightmare out there." whimpered Adym.
"Why, what's out there?" I replied without thinking.
"You don't want to know what was out there you just need to follow us back to the third floor we've adapted the original plan on newly gathered intelligence and we’re going to plan B. Back to the fire-escape and fire bomb this place with everything and everyone inside it. Things are not what I expected and need to be stopped" I couldn't see Xanthic's face as he spoke from my position holding him tight but his words were soft and gentle floating into my ears like a dandelion seed floating on its fluff in a breeze.
"Did you find the vampire? And what did they do to that girl?"
"No, we didn't but we found enough to know it has to end here." more gentle words, he was protecting me I know and right here in this place I was glad of it, although I would never admit it.
"Oh God no we didn't." Adym gulped air in after the effort of pushing the words out. He was still resting his full weight against the door. "Oh my God this place is a Hell. We've got to save them all from this devil's pit." He was close to panic, I could hear it in his voice. He was slowly banging his fist behind him striking the door in a irregular putt putt sound.
"Firstly we agreed not to mention that and secondly God has as much responsibility for this as my lot do. Now please don't panic my employee and let’s get out of here to watch the fireworks shall we?" I could feel the muscles through his body tightened as he spoke.
"What's out there? rescue who? I asked fearing a fight to escape as we pass through whatever was the other side of the door.
"He means to rescue all of us and the people of this town from this soulless evil. Now let’s make sure this thing is dead and let’s go."
"No, I didn't I meant the girls, those poor girls. God give me strength, you HAVE to get them out with us." Adym said with a voice rising in pitch to a point it could crack glass.
"What girls? What is he on about."
"Nothing."
"The girls locked up through there. You have to go back for them." more than a little panic in his voice now.
"I have to do no such thing, I didn't put them in there. Now shut up or I'll leave you here too." his voice was harder and although I could not see it I felt Adym sag as what was left in him with any fight gave in.
"There are girls here and you aren't helping them?" I said into his chest. I didn't understand.
"There are humans on the other side but I would like to get you out of here before you fall into another hole, so if you will just come with me I'll help you up the stairs and...." he stopped short as I pushed him hard and broke out of
the embrace.
"There are girls here and you aren't going to take them out, that’s inhumane and...." He stopped me finishing with a reptilian tone.
"I am inhumane, I don't know what you two think I actually am but I sure as Hell ain’t a white knight on a charger sent to rescue the lame and stupid from their fates; I am part of the dark, working to service the whims of my superiors and taint souls in the readiness of whatever is to come. What do you humans find so hard to believe about this."
I didn't want to stop at this, whatever was happening here shouldn't continue and if there were innocents being kept against their will then it was our duty to try something. "We have to go to them, they need our help. We have to help." It wasn't a dynamic and rousing speech with which to change the minds of my peers to risk all for a great undertaking but it was the best I could do suffering with fear, exhaustion and mild concussion.
"If it’s a choice between our rapid retreat and trying to take a gaggle of terrified and half insensible people with us and face capture and share their fate, then I’m on team Me."
"You came for me." I tried to pull on heartstrings.
"I need you, I don't need them." O.K, note to remember you can't pull on heartstrings if the guy doesn’t have a heart. I walked away from him, collected the pen-light, stopping for a second to let the faint light fall over the body of the girl; she looked peaceful and not at all like the thing that was so furious moments ago.
"Open the door." I said loudly.
"No."
"No." both boys said together, one in a stern tone and the other with fear.
"Open it." and it opened.
As I tried to maneuverer past Xanthic and through the door I felt numbed with my senses dulled. Nothing in the gloom was fully visible and I was thankful for that but we walked through a room as wide as a hall with tables and tools scattered around as if they had been turned over and thrown by vandals or someone in a rage. There was blood and there was grime; there were bodies or part of bodies and things with wings or horns or covered in hair. The had been dissected, carefully in places and ripped apart elsewhere; one creature bare chested and muscular with heavy straps holding legs that ended in hooves. Its skin had been pulled back and held with clamps exposing the strings of muscle that lay underneath. A notebook with a detailed anatomical pencil sketch of the current procedure lay open next to it. I was walked on by pressure from behind steering me around the tables. Another held what looked to me like a traditional fairy, petal dress, golden hair, butterfly wings and a small tray containing a tiny heart, lungs, something round and green and a purple organ I couldn't imagine names or functions for.
"I knew him." said Xanthic standing over the hoofed creature. "Silly old goat but he didn't deserve this."
There was no tear in his eye, but there easily could have been judging by his soft voice. "This place needs to burn."
He took out a thermos filled with the two highly flammable powders and inserted a length of fuse selected by biting off a part of the full coil he had in a pocket and touched the free end to his index finger, it glowed and then fizzed into life. He held the end for a few seconds to check it would continue to burn and then let it drop.
"Best guess is just over ten minutes so unless you want to add your own body to the bits about to be blasted over the walls I suggest you follow me with all haste." he then took me again and pushed me towards the next door. Adym followed so closely he kicked at my heels.
I was ushered past the tables and into a room similar to that I had fallen into, this one was partially filled with the smell of sweat and fear but more accurately filled with more cages; this time two large full height steel bar jails. The shadows moved and started to scream.
"Come on, no time to stop for a gossip." Xanthic said forcibly shoving me on, but I grabbed a bar and held on.
Girls came forward pleading for help frantically once they saw we were......not anyone else. I use the term 'girls' because they remind me so much of the group from the pub, all young women just rolling on from the grip of childhood and into adult life. Each one different with varieties of height, body shapes and hair, eye and skin tones but again each the same because of their tight age range, same look of lost on their faces and each one following the herd in the last vestiges of hope they would be saved from this place and the fears it holds.
"We haven't got time, does anybody remember the huge fireball in a can?" a good employee always follows their employers instructions but I never claimed to be a good employee and countered Xanthic's statement with one of my own.
"We can't leave them here, we have close to ten minutes to get them out."
"And get them all up the stairs without being stopped? No, we don't have the time and my plan doesn't include wearing my insides on my outside."
"Sod your plan. Let me go." I wiggled out of his grip and in the dark felt along the bars till I found what I was looking for. The lock was where the door met the frame and it stood out proud, I could fit my index finger into the whole which told me the key was thick and long.
I called for the girls to stop screaming and whether they knew where the key lay and shouted at Xanthic to start looking for it unless he wanted to advertise and interview for a new assistant because either way if he didn't help I wouldn't be about to assist him further after one of the more confident girls told me it was left on a table. Adym was lost in the dark and I heard Xanthic assist him in locating the wall by means of a not too gentle push. Adym gibbered something of time running out and I didn't know if he was more concerned for the girls or for his own skin; from his wide arm sweeps on the wall trying to find the resting place of the key I hoped it was for the girls.
I couldn't help, my hand was held by several of the girls who were clinging to me for their safety and they talked, once I asked them how they got here, of being caught by big men when they arrived in London looking for a new life. My worries for runaways turn when two said they had come from Wykeham. None answered to the name Samantha or Beth.
"Here it is." said Xanthic holding a key up. He did this a little too soon after Adym crashed into a table and rebounded into the wall.
He threw it to me and in the dark I missed, it clanged against the hard floor and ricocheted into the cage where there was a mad scramble to find it. Eight pairs of hands all scrabbling about to locate it but in the mad haste the key had been knocked more than once around the insides taking it further from its final destination. A glint shone off it as it slide past a solitary point of light and I stretched to reach it, hooking a finger around its shaft just as a heavy hand fell upon it. I cursed as my finger was bent past comfort but with a little surprise when I retracted my hand as quickly as I did I still had the key within it and just as quick I found its housing and turned it with a click.
The girls knew what had happened and surged forward with the same enthusiasm and lack of coordination as the search for the key.
They fell out of the cage and onto the floor, elbows and knees pulling in all directions to separate themselves from the mass. I jumped clear as the heavy door swung open and tried to pull people up off the others, Adym gave assistance; we both grabbed handfuls of sticky clammy skin and finally got the top layer of girls off those below complaining of being crushed. Xanthic meanwhile had slunk off to check the disturbance from the other room.
"I think." Xanthic said looking through a slit in the open door. "That we may have company."
The lights came on and we all looked at each other and then at the girls who were bereft of clothing and footwear, of all the emotions they displayed shame of their undress appeared not to be one. One cried out and then as a group screamed as if their lives depended on it.....maybe it did. Adym blushed at the sight with scarlet streaks flushing though his face and arms. He turned away facing the wall muttering a very English gentleman’s apology.
"And we have three minutes left if we are lucky. So how do you think your plan is panning out? Well hello ladies, let me introduce myself." he addre
ssed this last comment at the hysterical girls as he walked towards the middle of the room.
I stamped my foot, something I would have once denied doing since I was a little snotty thing but now becoming more regular, finding it aided in the expulsion of tensions. "We got them out of the cage didn't we? Now it’s back to your plan, so go on and do it your way again."
"Come out come out wherever you are." called an accented voice. It sounded strong and confident and echoey as if it was someway off but bouncing around all the metal surfaces throughout the other rooms. Apart from the aura-sonus of my Boss which played a strained tune since the plan started turning sour and the background radiant tune which was so thin and weak - and I assumed was dying like its owners on those operating tables, there was no more music. So, not an 'Other' of any kind, as far as I understood it.
"Is that our vampire?" I asked starting to feel like a little girl again hoping the grown-ups knew exactly what they were doing.
"No, no stink. But it’s not human......not entirely anyway. Stay quiet we might be able to talk our way out of this." he smiled. "Tell them to shut up or all of Hell's fury will be really upset with them." He pointed to the girls and smiled a lot more; they all shut up and remembering their reduced levels of coverings pulled their arms around them strategically.
"Two minutes." added Adym. "There are two minutes left. Do something."
"I am." said Xanthic. "I'm planning on burning to as close to death as I can and if I don't die I will slowly, over many many agony filled decades, pull what’s left of my charred body out of the ruins and re-grow my strength and appearance and then track down what’s left of your family and descendants and put them all on a spit over a very hot fire and watch as their fat and oils dribble out their pores. How does that sound to you?"
"Boys, not helping." I said not feeling any better and looking at my near immortal employer to come up with a last minute plan that will get us all out of here in the next minute and a half.
Diary Of An Occult Resolution Assistant Page 27