Catherine Baclanova (russian_slayer) wrote in btvsal, @ 2009-02-19 10:38:00 |
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Current mood: | scared |
Entry tags: | catherine baclanova, jeremy lewis, place: la, ~aella |
Spooky House
Who: Catherine, Jeremy, and Aella
When: Wednesday Afternoon
Where: Jeremy's House, and then Aella's House
At exactly noon, Jeremy's phone rang. Only one place would bother to be so punctual with things like that.
How many men could say that they'd slept in until noon because they were up all night talking to a ghost, and totally lost track of time? Not many, one would wager. Yet here Jeremy was, laying in bed, snoring away, as his phone rang. He fumbled out of his sleep and grabbed it, talking into the reciever in a half-mumbling voice. "...'ello?"
"Mr. Lewis?" A clipped, female British voice said on the other end. "We have some important matters to discuss with you."
"Great." He grumbled, wondering why the Council couldn't ever call with requests for him to go save a puppy, or to go investigate a plate of pancakes at IHOP. "So who gets to knock me on my ass this time?"
"There are reports of a rare Umbra Demon in your area. You don't see much of them outside of Europe, and this one seems to be particularly active lately," the woman said to him.
"Oh. Splendid." He said with utter sarcasm. "So... any particular reason you phoned ME with this? Not that I'm trying to bitch here, but I know there are other Watcher/Slayer combos around here with more experience together than me and Catherine..."
"Catherine has the most experience of any of the Slayers in the area," the woman said to him. "We're not sure if any of the other girls are up to it yet. We just want you two to investigate for now, but we'd rather a more experienced girl be there in case things get...out of hand."
"Alright, alright... gimme the address. I'll grab Catherine when she gets out of school and we'll go check it out..." He grumbled, wondering if hsi life would always have to be this... interesting.
The woman gave him the address. "Please check it out right away. It's a priority." She hung up after that.
Before getting ready, Jeremy called the high school, and left a message with the main office to tell Catherine to please come see her 'tutor' after school. As he waited, he began getting himself ready, sheathing a few small blades and assorted melee weapons in various places of his clothing.
When Catherine got the message, she knew exactly what he meant. She came by his place straight after school, looking ready to patrol, since she figured that they would be going to some place specifically in need of destruction. "You needed me?" she asked when he answered the door.
"Yeah... the Council wants us to check up on some demon they think is starting to be active in the local area. Lucky us." He sighed, smirking to her. "You up for it?"
"Sounds like it could be fun," Catherine said with a slight grin. "What kind of demon is it?" Not like she'd necessarily know the name if he told her, but she figured she'd ask.
"An Umbra demon... very rare in this country, luckily. But supposedly they aren't usually very confrontational with people that are ready for them, so hopefully we wont have much of a battle on our hands today."
"Umbra...means shadow, right?" She knew it meant that in Spanish, but that probably actually came from Latin or something. "Does it hide in the shadows or something?"
"It uses shadows as a living weapon, of sorts." He wasn't the most typical watcher, this one. "I don't know... some kind of shit like that."
"Creepy," Catherine said. "Well, what should I suit up with, then? Do knives still cut it, or do they go through it like...well, a shadow?"
"They can be attacked. The thing we're unsure of it... if the shadows are part of her. If we hurt her by hurting them, and vice versa." He sighed and started walking toward the door. "Let's go... sooner we get this done, sooner we're both home safe." He looked at the house he knew wasn't as empty as it looked, and whispered, "Hopefully... I'll see you soon, Iris."
Catherine just smiled as he whispered to his 'roommate.' It was cute, like something out of a movie. Catherine felt a brief breeze as Jeremy walked out. "Don't worry, Iris, I will take care of him," Catherine said before following him out the door.
After a bit of a walk, the two finally arrived at the run-down house near the school. Approaching the door, Jeremy turned to look at Catherine. "Alright. Look. Worst-case scenario... if we get in trouble, RUN. I mean it. I'm replaceable. You're not."
Catherine looked at him and shook her head. "Aren't I technically the replaceable one? 'When one goes down, another one rises.' Nice, spooky language, there." She grinned. "Don't worry about it. We'll *both* be fine."
"Alright. Let's do this." Like he'd seen in movies, he tried to put on the big tough-guy act, to make her worry a little less about him. So he thrust his foot forward, to kick the door open. Instead, his foot went right through the door, and he almost fell over. "...right. Brilliant."
Catherine managed to not laugh when that happened, but it was a bit of a trial to not do so. After she helped him out of the door, she nudged it open with her hand this time. "Let's take this a little slower."
"Got it." They walked in, and, with an urgent desire to just get this over with, he actually called out. "Right... so, any shadow-wielding demons home this fine afternoon?"
Other than a slight flicker of shadows, nothing happened. "I don't think it's going to give an answer. 'Yes, I'm here, please kill me.' Evil never works that way," Catherine told him.
"Well, damn it... I can try." He continued to walk around, grumbling a bit. "I mean, it's not like it's going to walk out an introduce itself."
Catherine heard what she thought sounded like a girlish giggle. "You sure about that?" she asked, her eyes widening just a little.
"Ok, this just got very, very creepy." He said, his hand slipping down to touch the small knife at his belt.
Catherine looked around as they walked into what she figured might have been called a 'parlor' a hundred years ago. "Very much so," she said. She felt something tickle at her ankle for a second. She quickly moved away from it and turned around. "Something just touched me."
"Alright... enough..." He moved to stand in front of her. "Whatever the hell you are... just show yourself. I just want to talk." He didnt say the rest of his thought, which was 'mostly because you could likely kick my ass'.
"Show myself?" A girlish voice called out from what seemed to be everywhere in the house. "Why would I want to do that?"
Catherine looked around. "We just want to talk," she repeated.
"She's right... we're just trying to communicate." He silently hoped that maybe, just this once, it wouldn't come down to a fight.
"Aren't we talking now?" The voice said to them. "I feel more comfortable this way."
"Well, kind of, but it's kind of hard to talk to someone that you can't see," Catherine said.
"Fine, fine... what I meant is a conversation where we can see you as well as you can see us." Jeremy said, wondering if the demon was as... looney as it seemed.
A figure finally appeared from one of the many shadows of the room. It looked like a teenage goth girl, but the shadows that danced at its feet gave away its true nature. "I show you myself. Talk now." She tilted her head at the two of them.
Catherine looked from it back to Jeremy. He was the one who wanted to chat with it, after all.
"Ok. Right. Um... we think you're killing people. Um... so... don't?" Yes, thus spoke the great communicator.
"But what if I need those people to live? Would you deny me the right to live?" It asked, pouting just a little.
Catherine looked at the thing, and then back at Jeremy again. OK, she usually was not the talking type with the demons she was supposed to slay, so she didn't have a clue what to say to it.
"Nobody wants to deny you the right to live..." Well, truthfully, the Council might. "But when it comes at the expense of innocent people, well... that's where we have a problem."
"But what is innocent than just that which has not been corrupted yet?" It asked them.
"Not exactly our line of thinking," Catherine told it.
"Look... we don't want to fight you. Whatever your name is. But it doesn't mean we won't. Consider this visit a warning... there are others like us. And they might not be so... diplomatic about this." Jeremy looked at Catherine, ready to get going. At least they had a little bit of information.
"No need to be so forceful," it said to them. "I always want others to play with, though. If they want to come, let them come." It retreated back to the shadows, and seemed to quickly disappear.
Catherine looked around. "I vote we leave."
"I second that." Jeremy replied, starting to carefully back out of the house. "We learned what we came for..."
Catherine heard the thing's voice start to hum a lullaby. "We learned that this thing is terribly creepy," she said, backing out faster. "Mission accomplished."