Something Wicked

[st_clare]

It was getting dark very early now.

Thanksgiving was fast approaching, and Julianna was clearing the decks so she could relax and enjoy the brief time off. It wasn't really much of a holiday in England, but it was the only break she'd get from teaching until Christmas. She could always cook a meal for herself at home.

Nathan's birthday was also coming up. She'd bought him a watch and had plans to take him out for dim sum. Las Vegas wasn't much for foreign cuisine, but she'd found a few places here and there that featured something besides seafood and steak. They might not be having a relationship, per se, but she did consider it part of the deal to help him broaden his horizons.

The clock told her it was seven o clock. She was still at her desk because she was preparing a lecture about tribal life in Africa, as well as the varying dialects that were spoken among the tribes. The hallway beyond the office was silent, the last sound she'd heard being that of heels click-clacking past. Maintenance had finally repaired the door, which meant she could close it now without it sticking.

The Watcher took her glasses off, rubbed the bridge of her nose. Thank God she was almost done with this. She wanted to go home and have some dinner.

Comments

[lady_elfleda]

It commenced with a scratch.

Not a scratching, but one, long scratch. Several of them, all at once, making their way from one side of the ceiling to another. The electric light quickly flickering with interference as the sound reached wall, then halted.

Nothingness... Somehow too much of it. The minutes ticking by, yet feeling as though the air was somehow heavy, oppressive, tingling in the long, drawn out silence with anticipation of something to be.

Shuffling... Like something in a sack being pulled along the floor, just outside of her door. A door which sounded with little fast knocking sounds, as if someone was asking permission for entry.

And the handle rattled.

If one went to investigate, nothing would be there. The hallway empty and yet, the feeling persisted that something was, indeed, watching. An experience in which little had taken place, yet could leave one with the feeling of having their private sanctity violated.

But investigation or not, matters were far from over. The presence stopping, lurking, waiting. Light once more flickering. Waiting patiently for the researcher to return to her desk.

Then the scratch reappeared with vengeance. This time, vicious and deep - as if talons had torn across the surface, leaving behind a scorched trail of blackened heat. From beneath it, the sensation of hands shooting forth, grabbing ahold of legs and attempting to pull her down.

And then nothing.

Nothing but a voice, girlish, yet knowing. Innocent, yet not. Half-verbal, half-telepathic.

"The more you knock upon my door, the more inclined it will be to open... And swallow you whole."

And should she look above, an inky pool of shadow would be found to be spreading across that ceiling.

[st_clare]

She'd gotten up because of the noise, thinking it was some practical joker loitering around after hours, but when she poked her head out into the hallway there was no one there. The overhead light was dimming and brightening in quick flashes, causing a slight strobing effect. Julianna flicked the wall switch, but that didn't solve the problem. A chill touched the back of her neck.

The chill turned into the sensation of ice water being thrown over her when she returned to her desk and felt hands grabbing for her calves, then just as quickly letting go when she stumbled into her chair, which rolled a few inches before stopping. She latched one hand onto the chair's arm, wheeled it back in her direction so she could sit down. Sit down before she fell down. Her heart had started a fast, thumping rhythm in her chest.

She should have expected it, really. According to what information she'd been able to uncover, Elfleda was powerful in the netherworld, and if she could manifest on the earthly plane to the point that she could come bearing gifts, she was not a being to be trifled with. Julianna took a deep, slow breath. The lights had stopped flickering. The blackness on the ceiling was spreading like oil.

"Corruptress."

She was remembering Valerie's description of the unseen things that had held her in place. In one of her desk drawers, separate from the stone Elfleda had given the Slayer, there was a protection charm. She'd had it blessed at a proper church, to be given to the blonde later. If she had anticipated this visit the way she should have, she'd have gotten one for herself as well.

This was a test of sorts. If she was to be a real Watcher again, get back on the proverbial horse, events like this could well become a common occurrence. Could the brunette hear her heartbeat the way a vampire could?

"I wasn't seeking you out for myself. I know better than that. It was for someone else."

[lady_elfleda]

A dreamy hum of satisfaction could be heard upon being addressed by formal title, almost wickedly post-coital.

"Yes..."

Then came what amounted to a verbal challenge. A denial of personal involvement.

"Your reasons are irrelevant... This quest places you on the same path. The becoming of an embodiment of interference."

There was the strangest, most unsettling atmosphere. As if the inky blackness would be willing to reach forth with a sensual caress, only to embrace you like some diseased, toxic cactus. To be so close to an expression of something so dark, so driven by ghastly intelligence... It was disturbing.

"And driven by the most delectable guilt... My, my, how sacrificial we must be feeling<, lately."

It was like putrid meat being lowered into water. The monochrome figure of Elfleda almost oozing down from the portal to some forbidden netherworld rooted to the ceiling. First, the feet, then the beginnings of that black, regal dress. The girl's rictus smile fixed in place, staring forth at the Watcher, eyes and lips as deathly black as her skin was pale.

To be in her presence was sickly... And yet, somehow, sugar-sweet. Frighteningly inviting.

"By merging your affairs in those of others, you enmesh your heart's desires. A subject with which I am intimately familiar."

[st_clare]

The vague feeling of nausea was back, the same feeling she'd had when she'd tested the stone, and when Julianna swallowed she realized that her saliva tasted metallic. Elfleda was beautiful, but it was a twisted beauty, an inverted one. The way her very nature was goodness inverted. The Watcher could feel her armpits beginning to sweat, despite the fact that it wasn't hot in the office. If anything, she was otherwise freezing.

"I have yet to interfere," she told the Corruptress, swallowing again past the tang of electric spit. You will not vomit. You are Julianna St. Clare, daughter of Antha St. Clare. This is a sideshow, a warm-up act. "I've only merged my affairs to a point. The girl in question is someone I should have met in the past. I'm correcting my own path, not hers."

For the moment. Could Elfleda read minds?

'Delectable guilt'. If what she had read was correct, the brunette thrived on hopelessness, and there'd been a time when she'd been hopeless. It had taken her a long time to come out of the shadows cast by Allison's death, and even now there was still a kernel of that terrible sense of loss. She was trying to root it out, to step fully into the sunshine so that something positive could take its place, but she still had quite a way to go.

"You were something else once, weren't you?" she inquired, folding her ringless hands together on the desk blotter. Her voice only trembled a bit despite her terror. "Someone else."

[lady_elfleda]

"To meddle is in the nature of your Council. That and your own insufferable need to help... As you see it."

A flicker of black eyes down and back up. Elfleda gliding forth, inch by inch, like the creep of a thousand tarantulas beneath that regal skirt.

"Who I was... And what reason would you have to ask me of that?"

[st_clare]

It was like being circled by an imperious shark, even though Elfleda had first descended from above rather than enter the office through the door. Julianna was simultaneously terrified, repulsed and fascinated. Was the stone hidden within her desk calling to the Corruptress like a homing signal? Was it possible to cleanse a public place and remove the psychic taint of the ethereal brunette's presence?

"Call it intellectual curiosity," she said in a voice that came out sounding squeezed. "The lore is scant on details surrounding Leviathan. There isn't even any mention of whether or not it comes from this dimension. It's rather a fascinating subject for study."

What was she playing at? She had little hope of making Elfleda connect with her lost humanity, long diluted by the essence of whatever she'd been sacrificed to. But talking was a way to combat the horror of her presence in what had been a sanctuary of sorts. The ridiculous part was, she was genuinely intrigued. Was Leviathan a demon, and if so, what circle of hell did it come from?

[lady_elfleda]

Well... That made the phantasm halt. Elfleda raising chin, head tilting upwards - eyes locked, widening for just a moment.

"You wish to learn? Of my betrothed through blood... Through sin."

Reaching hand slowly up to chin, Elfleda struck a likeness of studious contemplation. An heavy wave of oppressive, guilt-ridden depression pulsing out into the room, as if empowered by the very suggestion. Her resulting black-lipped smile smooth and gradual.

Tempting... But no.

"Your heart isn't in it..."

[st_clare]

It must have been mental manipulation, the sensation of ants crawling around beneath her clothes. It was true that Julianna could be terminally curious, especially when facts were hidden from view for whatever reason, but she was also not only ethical but moral. She might make the occasional peculiar distinction, but even those instances were compatible with her personal beliefs. So no, her heart wasn't in it.

"I wasn't intending to offer myself as a replacement," she said with a strained attempt at amusement. "Even the Council doesn't require one to be a sacrificial lamb. But once a researcher, always a researcher."

Would the sign of the cross chase the Corruptress away? Somehow she doubted it. Spiritual purity might be a way to hinder Elfleda from telling Leviathan's secrets, but that didn't mean ritualized gestures would cast her out. It would take more work than that to keep her away.

"I have a wish to prevent harm," she said. Her knuckles were white from the grip one hand had on the other. She was probably sweating through her blouse. "To follow my path."

[lady_elfleda]

"You aren't pure enough for that," had replied Elfleda. An inadvertent, if ineffectual, clue as to her own mortal beginnings. "But there are always other ways to serve, be they aware or not."

Replacement, indeed... And how did one such as Elfleda regard the suggestion of it? Amusing? Insulting? Trivial? Compelling? Annoying? good poker player, that one would make. For there was no obvious indication upon her features.

"Your path," the figure echoed - and that time, the mockery was obvious in the being's tone. "You yearn for one, you don't follow... It has not yet been set. Allow yourself to chose... Allow them to choose."

A sudden waft of skirt and the ghostly Corruptress came closer, still.

"But by all means, Julianna..." Black eyes narrowed, like orbs of watery ink. "What do you presume to know of Leviathan's nature?"

[st_clare]

To hear her name spoken by Elfleda made Julianna shudder with revulsion, a muscle movement she couldn't control. Names were powerful, and in the mouth of a being like the Corruptress, it could possibly even do psychic harm. The chair creaked as the Watcher shifted her weight.

"Leviathan corrupts," she said in a quivering voice. "As you were corrupted. The origins of your...betrothed...don't really matter. It manifests its power by spreading like an infection, a disease. A disease of the soul."

Her tone managed to be pedantic when she spoke, as if she were giving a lecture in one of her classes. Her fingers were going numb from lack of bloodflow. She's getting too close. If she touches me, I really will vomit. I probably won't be able to help it.

"I've told her I intend to return your...gift," she said. "Keeping my word is valuable to me. You seem to know me, you must know that."

[lady_elfleda]

"Then you know little... I should pity your belief that the light is any different." A sudden lurch forward, like a rattlesnake's predatory slide and Elfleda was brought several feet closer to her target of interest. A calm smile accompanying her next words. "But your fear is far more respectful."

Perhaps there was some unseen hand guiding the Watcher's own affairs. A force which considered itself good and with noble intent, attempting to steer her course through life. If so, then it was either blind to the potential for Elfleda's involvement or had deliberately placed her in danger from it.

Hardly a very angelic thing to do, was it?

The chair creaked again, but not, this time, because of weight. The room's atmosphere was increasingly oppressive and heavy, weighing one's very consciousness down, as if a great mass was seeping in through the skull. Elfleda's invisible entourage was near, no doubt and willing to do her bidding at a moment's notice. she had only to silently will it.

"And your attempt at tribute, at leverage, is a sorry one."

Another dark wave of filth pulsed out from the Corruptress, filth-ridden and sticking to the mature woman's aura like soiled glue. Except, this time, it wasn't momentary. It was constant. A spiritual radio signal vibrating on a vile, scratching signal.

Slowly, but surely, beginning an active attempt at what Elfleda did best.

"Such a shame, of course, that your talents have been so frequently ignored. That your Council has persisted in overlooking the Watcher you could truly be... It's enough to make one's thoughts turn to considerable frustration, hmm?"

[st_clare]

Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee...

The horror of this visit was compounded when that smothering, invisible dunking happened, and Julianna gagged as her nausea increased. Her soul felt the touch, and it threatened to curl in on itself as the Corruptress;' essence poured forth. Her hands released their grip on each other to grab the arms of the chair instead.

Yes, she had been frustrated. The Council had taken her off of the training roster because she'd developed an attachment to Allison, and even though she'd had her doubts about her competence in the field she'd simultaneously been humiliated by the removal. One incident surely shouldn't be enough to undo a lifetime of service, should it? Caring wasn't a crime. Any Watcher who claimed not to have their occasional doubts and insecurities was either a liar or an incompetent fool who wasn't intelligent enough to have uncertainties.

"They shoved me aside," she muttered. "I'd always been faithful, and they shoved me aside because I broke the rules once. They said my disposition was the issue. As if they had some right to question my character. I..."

It was ugly, but it was as if she was freshly out of Cyrus Claymore's office, feeling as chastised as if she'd been paddled. Rational thought was much different than what her emotions told her. Her gorge kept threatening to rise because of Elfleda's closeness. She swallowed past the urge to splatter her lunch all over her desk.

"Stop it." It was a grunt, and Julianna couldn't decide if she was talking to herself or to the creature in her office. "For the love of God, stop it!"

[lady_elfleda]

Elfleda's head tilted. So intriguing to witness a mortal's true being... One only had to remind them of what angered most. What grated against their heart like the cutting of ripened cheese.

"I merely show what you hide from yourself... Do not presume me to have bewitched you."

This time, it was spoken with narrow-eyed contempt. Dismissive. Annoyance.

"And you will tell your Slayers I am not to be turned from... Do not stand in hell's path, Julianna. Continue to do so and I shall bring more than sentiments of curiosity."

As if to ram home her message more completely, something grabbed ahold of the Watcher with a sudden clamping around the back of neck, dragging her forward to where a new portal into nothingness swirled against wall. From within the inky blackness could be heard a distant chorus of horrors. Screams of genuine agony, chilling to hear. The stuff of nightmares. Something a little closer, sounding like cracking bones and the noise of bodily waste being expelled. An acrid stench of burning shit leaking her way.

"I would consider your potential squandered, were you to join them... But not wholly disappointed."

Whatever was holding Julianna against her will, released its grip, gifting her with freedom. Elfleda moving calmly towards the shadowy gas, dipping a finger into it, as if some impossibly dark chocolate and taking it to lips. Tasting it.

"Our future meetings could be much... Much more productive... Wouldn't you prefer that?"

[st_clare]

Julianna slumped back into her chair, sweat pouring down her face and soaking the collar of her blouse. She'd bitten her lip when she'd been forced to view the nightmare on the other side of that portal, and she could taste blood on her tongue. Her breasts heaved as she tried to draw oxygen into her lungs. She was numb with horror.

Dimly, she was aware that she hadn't vomited. Given the nature of what she'd just seen, she likely would have strangled on it.

She needed a priest. A priest, a shaman, an exorcist. Leviathan - and by extension Elfleda - were powerful, but those powers couldn't be limitless. She wiped perspiration from the side of her neck.

Begone, foul spirit. Leave this place.

[lady_elfleda]

"I shall take that as a yes," the visitor surmised. Ebony lips curving into a smile, as surely as any butcher's knife across flesh. "I trust you won't need any reminders..."

With that, knowing her task was done, Elfleda stepped through with a look akin to teasing still cast over shoulder, allowing the contents to swallow her up and a blanket of spiritual decay to be left behind. It would take days, if not weeks to properly scrub it away, even with incense and more. Strange noises would be the least of any worries coming from that room for a while... And the damage done to the desk would remain as a testament to what and who was there.

The message had been sent. A taster had been given. Now the waiting game commenced.

[st_clare]

Elfleda's departure seemed to give Julianna energy, and she lurched out of her chair to stagger towards the bathroom that was adjoined to her office. The clock on the desk said it was seven-thirty.

She barely made it to the toilet in time, and then the remnants of her last meal came up with a heave. Vomit splashed against the inside of the bowl. Tears joined the sweat on the Watcher's face. She was barely aware of them.

Everything comes with a cost. It was Mother's voice. Antha St' Clare had instructed her daughter well, both before and after she accepted her duties. But she had never warned her about the likes of the Corruptress.

When the final spasm passed, Julianna sat down on the floor and leaned the back of her head against the wall. Her lip was still bleeding. The tip of her tongue slipped out, touched the wound. It stung.

Was throwing up better than being numb? Somehow, she doubted it.