Wake up!

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Time: May 1st 2003
Place: Ground floor
Status: Public (Baraq, Trilby) - Complete
Summary: Immediately following this thread. Trilby and Baraq meet. Hilarity ensues!


He raises his head to the sky. The summer heat is palpable, a warm hand pressed against his forehead. Although he cannot see where he is, there is an impression of space. Open horizon, open sky, sunlight on long grass. This is a place where he can breathe.

A voice fills his being: It talks of patience, acceptance, forgiveness. He cannot tell if any words are spoken, but he knows he's been waiting to hear them for three thousand years.

Someone's fingers press into his shoulder, someone leans to whisper something in his ear. Barachiel turns around, smiling—

---

And then he woke up.

Barnaby sat up. He stared blankly at the opposite wall.

He could handle memories. Reliving his lowest moments almost every night had been humiliating, but he'd survived. He was good at surviving. As a matter of fact, he suspected it was the only thing he actually excelled at. But dreaming of a possibility...

"Don't kid yourself," he said to the empty room. "Possibility? Ha! Forget it."

In the dream, the voice had brought with it a well of deep calm and stillness. He had almost forgotten about it until it had been burned out of him. The dream had given him a taste of what it had been like.

He kicked away the blankets, suddenly restless. He'd left the window open again, letting in rain and an unusually violent wind. An unseasonable storm? Whatever. He had to get out, get moving—

---

And then he woke up.

"Oh, thank goodness." He covered his face with his hands, stifling a bubble of relieved laughter.

Beside him, a sleeping form twitched. He shook his head. "No, it's nothing. I just had this weird dream, I was in a hotel, and there were all these people, and I thought I was a..."

There was a sharp gust of wind, the smell of copper and rust riding on its back. He looked up.

The walls of the room were thin. There was no privacy in these cells: You could hear the other prisoners mumbling and talking and fighting (if they were "lucky" enough to have a cellmate) easy as anything. There was the occasional grunt of pain from someone nursing their injuries, a supremely pointless action. Hell's torturers were too good at their work. If they didn't want you to perish, you wouldn't, but neither would you heal if it was against their wishes.

This was where they put the ones of no use, where they could be safely forgotten about: The incompetent, the uncooperative, the mad—not crazy in interestingly cracked ways, these poor creatures had simply gone catatonic. Of the three, Baraq was not certain which he fell under.

He didn't belong here. Did he?

Pushing the thin blanket aside, he raised himself off the ground and immediately scraped his head on the low ceiling. He ducked, wincing, and recoiled. Splayed by his feet was a body, spasmodically twitching. It was unrecognizable, slashed to ribbons and cut open; its hair might have been blond before blood had darkened it.

He made a low, animal noise of revulsion and backed towards the cell door. By some miracle, it swung open.

He bolted down the corridor, his broken wings trailing uselessly behind him.

Comments

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

Trilby darted up the basement stairs, taking them three steps at a time. Any moment, he'd feel cold metal bite into his shoulders, and that would be it.

Get to the room, get your things—stay on the move, he can be anywhere he wants but we can confuse him, buy time—and lead the Tall Man to the sleeping people above?

He halted for a second at the foot of the stairs to catch his breath. Cabadath was nowhere to be seen, but that didn't mean anything. Something didn't add up. If he just had a moment to think...

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Baraq fled down the stone steps of the prison. He nearly blacked out on the first flight, weak from confinement and from the fractures in his wings jolting with every movement. After that, he could handle it. Mostly. His vision stayed somewhat clear, that was good enough.

At the last flight he caught his foot on the rough stone, and he barrelled into the trim figure in the doorway below.

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

The pattering of footsteps made Trilby look up, just in time to see the dishevelled stranger falling towards him. Too late to dive to the side, he raised his arms to fend it off. As he did so, he shouted,

"Go back! There's something dangerous loose down here. It isn't safe!"

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Ah. It was a guard. A very stupid one, if he was unarmed and trying a bluff. Well, if he thought it was going to work, he had another think coming.

Baraq set his jaw -- this was going to hurt -- and used his momentum to tackle the guard to the ground. Something popped painfully in his wing joints, but he kept his vision and his grip.

"I'll decide what's safe or not," he growled.

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

Trilby couldn't help a disgusted flinch, even as they hit the carpet. The winged stranger was dressed in tatters, covered in blood and bruising and worse. He smelled utterly repellent. The ministry had apprehended some members of the Church of Blessed Agonies a few years ago; among them had been a novice undergoing initiation rites. She had looked very much like this ragged creature.

He flung the stranger off him, driving a knee into his abdomen for good measure. "Listen," he snapped while the stranger recovered. "There's a -- a creature loose, it's summoned a demon from the ethereal realm." Which shouldn't even be possible in this time and place. "Everyone in this manor is in danger. Pull yourself together and leave this place, or it will kill you. Can you understand at all?"

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

In the best of times, he should have been a match for a human assailant. As it was, Baraq folded.

He forced himself up, shaking with the effort. "You're talking nonsense," he muttered, feeling oddly as if he'd had this conversation before. Everything was odd. The guard's appearance, now. That was strange. The whole "man of wealth and taste" image shouldn't have been in vogue; this was still the age for chimeric animal hybrids. That never really went out of fashion, come to think... "This is where demons come from, you can't summon one here. And-- this is a prison, not a..."

Oh. Oh.

He slumped on the carpet, deflated. "I don't know," he whispered. "I want to wake up."

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

Trilby pinched the bridge of his nose, schooling himself into patience. The stranger was in pain, distraught, and possibly hallucinating. Cuffing him and shouting get a hold of yourself, man! would be cathartic, but not helpful. "I'll give you a hand up," he said. "Quickly, now. I'll explain in a minute." If I can do that much.

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Baraq looked at the outstretched hand dubiously. First he kneed him, and now this? This could be a trick. Then again, the last time someone had appeared in his dreams, she had been kind, if distant.

He let the man pull him to his feet. Baraq tested his footing: Still wobbly, but he'd rather choke than have to be supported. "Thanks," he muttered.

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

"Now," Trilby said, resisting the urge to wipe his hand on his pant leg, "If you can..."

He trailed off. Behind the stranger, an apparition had appeared before the reception desk, plainly visible even in the dark. Cabadath stared at him with his eyeless face, then the air rippled. Now a young man dangled from the ceiling, swaying gently. A rusted machete protuded from his chest.

"Oh, hell," he said softly. "Jim, not you, too."

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Baraq twisted to follow the man's look.

"Ah," he said.

"Okay," he said, turning back. "I'm convinced. But I don't mind telling you, I'm not getting very far in this condition."

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

With difficulty he tore his eyes away from the body. Jim had been pale to start with; now he looked like a wax figurine. "Just move," he said, heading to the front doors. "It's me Cabadath has his eye on, but he won't ignore you if you're in his way." He threw them open, with the hinges shrieking with rust. Behind him, the stranger gave a cry of dismay.

The countryside had been blackened by missiles. The manor gardens were still smoldering and glowing red. Ruined buildings could be seen in the distance, fallen in on themselves like so many broken eggshells. Far away, Trilby could hear wolves baying.

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Baraq jerked the man back and slammed the doors. "Hellhounds," he hissed. "If they're loose, their masters will be around. If Adam Young was here—" He shook his head. "It's as bad inside as out. What now?"

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

Hellhounds. Trilby had not believed in Hell and its better half since he was fourteen, and an entity talking about demons and dragging around a pair of great bloody flaps of feather and bone was not going to change his mind.

"Back door," he said. "Come on." He would have to come back for Jim's body later.

He ran lightly down the hallway, trusting that he would be followed. He caught glimpses of other rooms as he passed by: The restaurant had turned into an opium den, a meeting room had become a glowing white landscape spattered with blood, another was now a hospital ward. And everywhere, little whispering voices, just on the wrong side of audible...

At the end of the hall, there was a loud crack! and a burning beam fell from the ceiling, cutting off the path and singeing Trilby's clothes.

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

He limped along in something of a daze. It was starting to be too much to absorb. He wanted to wake up, for real this time, shake the dreams off, watch incomprehensible late-night films until sunrise. He winced and looked away when they passed the white room.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Baraq started to say, trying not to sound too petulant, when the ceiling collapsed.

In the moment before the glare of the fire blinded him, he thought he could see two shapes behind the flames—a woman and a youth, could have been male or female—then he fumbled for the closest set of doors, shoved the man in before him, and rammed the bolt home.

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

Trilby bit back a sharp reply, before the fire blazed and ruined his night vision. He caught a glimpse of the faintly-familiar shapes before he was bundled into another room. Just for once tonight, I'd like for someone to give civil directions without manhandling me. Is that so much to ask?

When the echo of the bolt faded, Trilby realized how very quiet it was. There was no crackle of fire, no howling, no voices. He struck a match.

They were in the ballroom. It had been cleared out after the Easter party, but now he saw tables covered with embroidered cloth, laid out with canapés and champagne glasses. The rich wall hangings were covered in dust, and the sour smell told him about the state of the food. In the centre of the room was a massive dark stain, with footprints leading out of it. Aside from them, it was devoid of life. A memory of perfume floated in the air.

"I think," he said, lighting one of the ornamental candles on the table, "we have a moment to talk. Why don't you tell me what you know first. How did you get those injuries?"

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Baraq sat heavily on a chair. His reserves of energy were nearly gone. "I was—I dreamed that I was imprisoned," he said tiredly. "That's what they do when you don't want to be a good little Fallen. It wasn't your Ca... your monster. Before that I was in the manor." He waved a hand at the surroundings. "I had a dream about this place last month, too. There was someone else with me then."

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

"Who?" he said sharply. "Was it a man made out of shadows?"

Dreams. Dreams were the key. He assumed that nightmares were just a symptom of other problems, but...

Trilby paced around the room, skirting the maroon stains. "You are awake," he said. "I can promise that. And we're still in Tadfield Manor." Probably.

"It can affect this realm," he muttered, touching the scorches on his clothes. "It can summon anything, it can affect the landscape, it can physically hurt us. What does it want?" He stopped short in the middle of the room. "Tell me," he said. "The—the boy in the lobby. Did you think he was in his twenties, or his teens?"

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Baraq shook his head. "It was a woman. Dark hair, beads and jewels... I remember a cigarette holder. She called herself Ishtar. She helped me pull myself together when I was—sick." He closed his eyes, remembering the nausea and dizziness. "I wasn't in any decent state of mind, you understand, but at the end it was like something had... shifted. Like something important had broken? I don't know. Dreams." He took a steadying breath, wiped the worst of the grime off himself with a napkin while the man muttered.

The last question took him off guard. "Him? He seemed... young. Not an adult." He thought about the man's distraught face. "Is he your son?"

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

"I'm not married," Trilby said automatically. He carried on pacing and thinking aloud. "Very well. At least two or three other people than us have been having nightmares. It's been hiding for at least a month, but it's chosen now to break out. " He didn't mention what had triggered it. "It uses memories, or shades; the way things could have been. That wasn't Jim, just an... image of him. Same for Cabadath. He's Chzo's dog, this Primoris creature couldn't command him." He stopped, looking up at a chandelier strung with cobwebs.

Primoris. Primaeval. Elemental.

Chzo was a pain elemental. It lived to cause agony, to feed and delight in it. The entity here used nightmares, which could cause pain, but it worked with other emotions as well. Paranoia, illness, desolation, failure...

"It's a fear elemental," he said, "and it's brought our dreams into the real world. Did it choose this place because so many supernatural beings are here? The worst fears of immortals must be potent indeed." He turned to face the stranger. "Change of plans. We need to go upstairs and find someone, and then we're going outside. What's your name?"

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

Baraq sighed, throwing the grimy napkin onto the table. "I understood maybe one word in four in that," he said. This man's idea of explanation was very skewed.

As he mulled over the words, however, there was a sudden stab of resentment. Someone was toying with him. Someone was taking his memories, picking through them like a box of assorted chocolates and selecting the choicest ones to slide under his ribs. How dare they?

How dare they?

Right then, the fractures in his wings and bruises stippling his body didn't matter quite so much. He stood up.

"My name is Baraq," he said. "Care to fill me in on this plan? Who are you looking for?"

[excunningthief.livejournal.com]

Trilby examined the stranger's—Baraq's—change of expression thoughtfully. Maybe there was something in there beyond irritable vapidity, after all.

"There's no more time to talk," he said. "The longer we sit about, the more likely it is this reality shift becomes permanent. But if I'm right, there's a way to fix this." If he wasn't, then a lecture on spellcasting would save no one. "Besides," Trilby added, "we can't stay here any longer." He waved a hand at the gilded walls: Now that they looked, the hairline cracks in the paint seemed to be spreading.

In a few strides, he was at the double doors of the ballroom. "I'll know who I'm looking for when I find them," he said.

[misterbkeele.livejournal.com]

He shot the man's back a cold look. He had a strong feeling that he was being condescended to.

There was no point in sitting in the dark and sulking. Baraq followed on the man's heels out into a corridor (that was strangely no longer burning), while the ballroom crumbled into disrepair behind them.