Isobel Brandt \\ Persephone (praxidike) wrote in paxemerituslog, @ 2018-01-13 23:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | ares, eris, hades, persephone |
it's not a secret
Who: Obed & Isobel, with a brief appearance by Daniel and BB.
What: The Brandts investigate their new asset, and then decide to move house.
Where: Pax Letale tower unit.
When: Early December.
Isobel's right hand opened and closed in a stutter motion, indicating her anxiety as her eyes tried to take in everything she was seeing. She and Obed were in the Tower unit of Pax, trying to wrap their heads around the building they'd just purchased.
Rather than a usual unit, the Tower floor apartment was huge. At one time, she'd thought the unit she shared with her now-husband was too big for two people, but this apartment put that to shame. Its wide expanse was underlined by the fact that it was so empty—a huge window looking over the beach and the horizon held an enterer's attention, but then the walls, the floors, everything else was left bare. The only furniture, if they could be called that, were a series of large computers with oversized screens, wall after wall of server banks, and a very alarming looking chair in one corner that she might have sworn was dotted with red.
Obed had had contractors and professionals come through to inspect the building; all of them had declared it sound, if old, and that there was nothing odd about it that would indicate a reason for infestations or, and this was phrased more delicately, 'strange changes on the floors.' Carbon monoxide detectors were working, and there were no gas leaks. This had left the new owners, the Brandts, with few answers and more questions as they tried to decide how to handle their new property.
Isobel's hand rose and rubbed the nape of her neck; the feel of the rings on her left hand gave her some comfort, reminding her that she was not alone in this. She glanced at Obed, her arms crossing over her chest in a defensive posture toward the room itself.
"Where do you want to start?"
Obed drew a deep breath, exhaling on a long, slow sigh. He slid a hand over his scarred face, reminding himself of why this long and difficult work was necessary. No-one else should suffer this way; no-one else should face those dangers. He and Isobel, together, had no choice but to find answers to the utterly indecipherable things that had happened to them all.
His cold gaze drifted over the room, drawn from one thing to another in rapid succession. But it kept returning to the red-stained chair, the one item that least seemed to belong. He nodded toward it. "There," he said. He walked toward it, his steps slow and deliberate. "That… that's blood, isn't it." He looked back to her over one squared shoulder. "Tell me I'm being dramatic."
She shook her head, her mouth pressed to a thin line as she'd watched Obed trace his new expression, not yet for the umpteenth time. Part of her wondered if he'd ever get used to his new reality, while the rest of her was merely regretful that she'd been unable to do more the night it had happened. Isobel forced part of a smile onto her face, less for the scene they were observing and more for him.
"I would if you were prone to that, but..." The smile turned to a frown as her gaze went to the item of furniture in question. "I guess we should get it tested? I doubt he was eating messy spaghetti up here." She shivered, one hand running up and down her arm as her mind went through a flurry of ideas tied to the chair in front of them. "And then I want it to go very, very far away. Maybe melted down, or something."
"Good idea."
He fell quiet then, moving over to the chair. His hand paused above one stain, but only for an instant. Then his nail scratched over the surface, picking at the red that flaked away like rust. His lips thinned. His mind raced. He did want it tested, but what could it be tested against? If they learned it was blood, what then? There was no recourse beyond that, nothing they could do that would not bring further suspicion down on themselves and their tenants. At least, nothing that immediately came to mind. So he filed this away for later contemplation, and focused only on careful observation for the time being.
"Do you see anything he might've used to do this, though?" he asked. He moved to a nearby door, presumably a closet, and opened it to peer inside. "I can't imagine he got rid of all his tools but not the chair itself. And if there are weapons in here we need to get rid of them."
Isobel turned to look at the rest of the apartment; there were dozens of nooks and crannies, even without furniture, that someone could have stored something in. And then she spied a cabinet just barely inching out from behind the banks of servers. It was a classic piece of office furniture, gunmetal in color and held closed by a small, unobtrusive lock.
"There's something back here," she said, glancing at Obed before moving toward the cabinet. As she drew closer, a smell immediately became apparent—soft and subtle at first, but noticeable. Isobel paused, and then finished crossing the room.
"There's something spoiled in there. Do you have the apartment keys they gave us?" She came to a stop just in front of the cabinet, her fingers loosely and fruitlessly plucking at the handle of the cabinet.
Obed fetched up behind her, withdrawing the keys from his pocket with a noisy jangling. He almost handed them to her, but stopped just before doing so. If Savoy had left any surprises for them, he had no desire to make Isobel be the one to discover them.
He put a hand to her arm, gently guiding her away from the cabinet. A number of keys on the ring looked like they might fit. He tried a few of them, his lips thinning in his concentration, before finally finding the one that worked. He withdrew the keys, returned them to his pocket, and placed his fingers gingerly on the handle. Though he did not realize it, he was holding his breath when he pulled the drawer out.
A pile of tools lay just inside, each one covered in the same flaking red-brown of the chair. Obed's brow furrowed as he made the grim inventory; a hand flew to Isobel's mouth, half stoppering the gasp that emerged. Bone saw, hammer, pliers, scalpels; it was a collection of instruments as much from home improvement shops as medical suppliers, and it was all the confirmation they required of what had gone on here.
"OK," Obed said, stepping back to let Isobel see. "We'll get these tested. We should at least try to find out if it's a match for those who've gone missing, or supposedly left the building."
Isobel, hand still pressed to her mouth, nodded; she swallowed, stepping further back than where Obed had guided her.
"Can we... please put it away," she said, hovering just behind Obed. "We should be wearing gloves. This is a crime scene." An all too familiar feeling circulated through her, and she forced her arms down to her sides. A distraction was necessary, and she moved her attention to the computers. Obed, in full agreement, slid the drawer closed and walked over to where she stood.
"But since we've started..." she commented, implying that there was no point in leaving the work half finished. She moved over two server banks to the first screen, so oversized to the point of nearly looking like a flat-screen television. Her hand hesitantly reached out to tap a key on the keyboard embedded in the machine just below the screen; the numbers and letters crawling across faded away instantly to show a Linux-based desktop. A number of neatly labeled folders were available.
Isobel's brow furrowed as she looked over them.
"I think... Those are apartment numbers, aren't they?" Her hand remained just beyond actually touching the screen, but the three and four-digit labels seemed to correspond with the filled units in the building.
"Check ours first," Obed suggested. "Let's confirm whatever's in the folders is accurate before we go digging into anyone else's."
A few quick keystrokes revealed, at first, what Obed had expected: Tenant details, lease agreements, a description of Hanni and copies of his vet records. Digging deeper, though, revealed more personal details. Color drained from Obed's face as he saw an unsettlingly comprehensive accounting of his interactions with the altered floors, the creatures that had invaded the building, even his few partial transformations. There were personal notes as well, details about his family and his precious few friends.
He shook his head, though what he felt was not disbelief, only a sense of violation that only grew as he scrolled down to Isobel's information. "Jesus..."
Obed backed out of the file. His eyes darted over the list, searching for the names of those who had departed in one way or another. He looked to Isobel, one brow arched, silently asking for her suggestion. The deepening sense of discomfort had not been abated by seeing her whole life—Bryan and her parents included, a note stating that the former had suddenly gone missing from all radars—summed up in several digital files. That combined with the bloody tools they'd found made her want to leave the room, seal it up, and never return.
But then she clicked down to 102, the unit for the vanished Brent McGregor, whom she had only known in passing. A double click revealed much of the same regarding what they'd found in their own D3 file, with some additional information—and then photos.
"Oh my god." Coroner-style photographs of McGregor's body on a surgery table, eyes half-open, mouth lolling to the side. There were no apparent wounds, no easily assumed cause of death. Isobel clicked out of the folder, stepping back. She looked to Obed. "Everyone who's left... Do you think...?"
She wasn't sure saying the words aloud would hold any luck for those still living in the building. Was anyone who'd left still alive?
"I don't... " Obed's breath left him in a quiet gasp. He shook his head, his eyes darting from one side of the screen to the other. Further observation only confirmed what he had already read; Obed fought and lost against a heavy, sinking weight in his belly. "I don't know. But once we've got a handle on this I'll call them, I swear. Or I could… I could ask Hades, couldn't I? Surely he would know…" Isobel nodded, her only reply. If it was in the realm of possibility, why wouldn't a god of the dead know if certain people had entered his realm?
Obed stared at the photographs of their deceased neighbor. It was jarring to know that this had happened under his very nose, and he had been none the wiser, had never even suspected. His teeth sank into his tongue. His mind raced as he grasped for which file to check next, whose details he wanted splayed out before them both. A chill ran down his spine as he covered Isobel's hand with his own, and directed her to Abel's old apartment.
There were no photographs in this file. There was, however, a wall of text that left Obed reeling even more than the autopsy had. With every word his mouth hung open all the wider.
Meticulous notes, kept by date and hour, seemed to track Abel's every movement. There were already some questionable pieces from his past, something about a patient he'd been caring for during an internship passing away by their own hand. And then there was his abrupt move to the west coast, though it was somewhat answered by the fact of a sister and father in the Northern half of the country.
But he'd never made contact with them. Instead, it seemed he'd wanted to distance himself from any who might know him, considering what came next—and the notes made it clear that they were uncertain that the following transgressions were limited solely to Pax Letale.
It seemed Abel favored particular tenants, specifically Nishka Bariss and Rafael Atala, though for what reasons it could not fully discern. Rafael, especially, bore the brunt of Abel's interests, starting with the revelation that Chad Anderson's suicide was no suicide at all, but a murder that had been carefully covered up through both Abel's actions and on part of the building management, to keep the police distant.
But the interest had not stopped there; during the floor change, Abel had taken advantage of the confusion and the fact that they were all locked in the building by directly assaulting Rafe. Isobel covered her mouth again, tears stinging her eyes as she read through Rafe's humiliation and torture at Abel's hands; everything then culminated in Abel's transformation into a beast-like creature near the end of the floor changes, chasing both Nish and Rafe through the stairwell until they were able to trap him inside.
The thing Abel had become sounded vaguely like what they had seen at the Halloween party, but Isobel was certain that that thing had not been a tenant. But there was more. In connection with the above note that Abel's activities expanded to items outside of Pax, there was a note about a body being found on a property owned by Obed Brandt's company, Strix. Isobel glanced sidelong at Obed, trying to gauge how he was taking this.
"We should stop—" she said, pulling away from the keyboard and wrapping her hands around his upper arm. "Go outside, get some air—"
Even with the suggestion, Isobel had seen the end of the file, seemingly confirming her suspicion that it had not been Abel Parrish at the Halloween party, but something else:
10/12 01:05:48: Successful extraction of the entity. Subject terminated in the process, but containment has proved successful as well. Transfer is next.
10/12 2:30:32: It's worked! The transfer, I can feel it, everything, it worked, I CAN FEEL IT
Obed stared unblinking at the lengthy document until his eyes burned. There was so much to take in, and none of it good. His mind raced; a tangled knot of emotion, a wholly unfamiliar thing to Obed, made it difficult to speak. He looked to Isobel, seeing the unshed tears in her eyes. Her friend's name had been in that file. That his own supposed friend had been the perpetrator of so much cruelty did not hold a candle to that. He slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Isobel turned easily, wrapping her own arms around his waist.
Even with her weight, slight but reassuring, against his own, Obed struggled with how to begin to address this. There was so much to be done now, and the gravity of their task seemed almost overwhelming. His hand stroked her back, an idle, unconscious reminder to himself that she was real, safe, and with him still.
"He's dead," Obed said, so forcefully it seemed as though he might have been arguing with his own inner monologue. "They both are. So we're all safe, for now." He squeezed her tight once more, then released her. His hands flew over the keys, closing out the terrible file they had opened. "We need a break. And we have to keep them all out of here. Permanently if we can manage it, but at least until we can clean all this out."
"I think that's best," she agreed. "Give everyone some time to absorb the changes, give us some time to figure out what we're going to do with all of this—" She wrapped her arms around her middle again, watching Obed work, frowning hard. Her next thought was interrupted by the sound of interlopers at the stairs.
"You think somebody's up there right now? Come on, we didn't come all this way for nothing, Daniel—" Someone was shoved forward, quick steps coming to a slow halt up the stairs. Isobel glanced at Obed, concern furrowing her brow.
"Like children," she said, her voice hushed as she rolled her eyes.
Obed shut off the monitor they had been using. His jaw drew tight as he approached the tower door. He could hardly blame them for their curiosity, though that did nothing to soften his expression when he threw open the door and addressed the trespassers directly.
"Miss Bernard," he said. "And Mister Ciin. I'd say this is a surprise, but we all know better than that." He moved to block the doorway. Between his scarred face and his arms crossed over his chest he cut something of an intimidating figure. Daniel stopped, casting a very clear I told you so expression over to his friend.
"Brittany, have you not had enough of this place yet?"
BB peered over Daniel's shoulder, looking slightly chastised. Then she squared her shoulders, half pushing Daniel out of the way.
"I have a right to know what happened up here!" She planted one foot, after awkwardly squeezing around the man she'd been bodily shoving up the stairs in the first place. "I have worked hard enough to not walk away with some piece of the puzzle and I am not going to let you take that away—" One hand chopped through the air, indicating her refusal to budge.
But her words were stopped halfway through as Isobel came up behind Obed.
"Both of you, downstairs. Now." Her words brooked absolutely no argument, and despite the fact that she did not cut half the figure that Obed did, BB suddenly wilted, her eyes going wide in surprise. She stared hard for a moment, her gaze flicking between Obed and Isobel, and then turned back toward Daniel.
"Well? Move!" She gave him a light shove against his shoulders. Dumbfounded, Daniel blinked at the Brandts for one long moment.
"Sorry," he said, and wheeled, following hurriedly after his friend.
"She backs down pretty quickly," Isobel commented quietly, one hand on Obed's shoulder. It drifted to his back as they watched the younger pair argue their way back downstairs. "Also, Bernard sounds really familiar."
"She ran a hit piece on me a few months back," Obed said. "She's been a paper tiger until now, but after what Savoy did to her… we should keep an eye on her." Once the sounds of the pair had entirely disappeared, Obed slipped an arm around Isobel's waist once more. He pulled her close, hugging her for a moment. Then he ushered her, too, out of the room, and locked it behind them. She waited in the hall, listening to BB and Daniel's retreating steps; BB had more harsh words, making Isobel frown, but the sounds were fleeting enough, describing the pair's hasty retreat. Isobel turned her attention back to Obed as he started to talk.
"She's right, though," he said. "They do deserve answers. Not all the answers, and probably not as quickly as they want, but… we have to give them something." He swallowed hard, choosing his next words carefully. "And about your friend… what are we going to do about that? We can't just pretend that didn't happen, or that we don't know about it. Can we?"
"I don't know," Isobel said quietly, reaching for his hand as they both moved down the narrow staircase to the hall itself. "I don't want to pretend that we don't know anything, but I also... I don't know how to even broach that topic with him. Or what we'd even do with the information. I can talk... Alice might know something, or Gabe; he's Rafe's boyfriend, isn't he? Do you think...?"
She didn't want to start spreading information around needlessly, especially if Rafael had kept things to himself. She swallowed, the steadier version of herself that had shown at the interruption to their explorations filed away for later. She rolled one shoulder. "I'll talk to him. I think it's worth it, if only to say we have evidence. File a police report? Or do you think it's better to hold off?" She looked to him earnestly, her fingers tightly wound around his for the anchor he provided.
"If he wanted to file a police report he would have," Obed said. "But you can tell him Abel is dead. Abel, and… whatever was in him that helped him do those things. I don't know if that will give him any comfort, but it might be a start." He squeezed her hand. Though there was no-one to hear, Obed lowered his voice. "Think of Bryan. I know I've slept better knowing he can't do any more harm."
She swallowed thickly, nodding. No longer having the spectre of Bryan to hang around her neck had been more relieving than she could have imagined. She could do that much for Rafe.
"That would go a long way. And we could start with that? And then figure out what to do with everything else. How to tell everyone else." She studied his face, her other hand rising to his cheek. Even with the scars, as her thumb played along his cheekbone, his skin felt the same. He tipped his head into her touch, nodding his agreement. "How are you, though? Are you all right? I know Abel was...I know you two were close."
"Not that close, clearly." Bitterness laced his tone. "I can't believe I never…" He shook his head. "I never even guessed. He seemed a little standoffish. Arrogant, sure. But I've been accused of the same. And I genuinely liked him, Isobel. I thought I'd found someone… like minded. But Christ, if that's true…" He frowned, drawing tight the scars across his face. He caught her hand, holding it close against his cheek. Silent for a moment, he leaned into her, his eyes falling nearly shut.
"That's not me, Isobel. It could never be me. Right?"
"No," she replied without hesitation. Her other hand freed itself to take his face between her palms, a small smile creasing her mouth. "Never. Obed, you try to be good, and that puts a world of difference between you and him. You see people, not playthings to do whatever you want with. You are good, because you're working at it."
The smile never abated, her eyes meeting his without flinching. "And besides," she added, her voice hushing despite that they were the only people on the floor, "I am always willing to tie you up, spank you, and sit on your face to remind you to be good. So I don't think you have to worry. Ever."
A smile bloomed on his scarred mouth, brightening his face even in the shadowed stairwell. His hands moved to her wrists, gripping them loosely, his thumbs trailing over her skin. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips and, leaning in toward her, he whispered back, "Why don't we go downstairs and you can give me a little… demonstration. Just to put my mind at ease."
Her hands twisted in his grip to ensnare his as her smile went wider. She took a step back toward the elevator.
"I would be happy to," she replied, tugging him with her away from the bad memories and the blood that the tower held.