an update no really I'm serious (Childish Rhyme)
The phrase 'childish rhyme' magically wove itself into today's poem. I seriously didn't plan that.
ANYWAY
EDIT: Forgot to make the poem big and bold.
Title: Childish Rhyme
Chapter: 6/? ............ Plan Unfold, Terror Told
Rating: R for safety, creepiness and some violence
Spoilers: pretty much everything from the first game to the fourth
Warnings: This fic will be heavily into heavy levels of unsettling and creepy. There might be one or two incidents of real violence towards the end but for the most part it's children staring with dead eyes. Ye be warned.
Summery: A fairy tale on fairy wing is something to make the birds all sing. Still I wonder what tale we sow since all I hear are the calls of the crow.
Klavier was so oblivious to the world in his flight up the stairs that he knocked a clerk into the wall when he reached the landing near his office. The fact that she had an obvious limp that he'd just made worse was the only thing that broke him out of his tunnel vision long enough to help her off the ground. He took the moment to tell her that the coffee was poisoned and then he was off again.
He almost broke the key getting it into the lock and almost tore the considerable door off its hinges but then he was in his office. Some small, delirious part of him chuckled at the fact that he was replaying moments spent with Detective Skye in his mind even as he fumbled for the phone's PA button. There was a song somewhere in seeing someone else's life flash before your eyes, to be sure. A ballad in a slow tempo with an acoustic guitar...
He managed to squash the voice as he grabbed his desk for support and all but shouted into the receiver.
"Achtung! Detective Skye has been drugged and kidnapped! Do not drink or eat anything and search everything. If she hasn't left the building then I want her found."
Using conventional lines he instructed a patrolman to take a forensic investigator down to the locked archives even as he texted both Protek and Serv. The twins were the only ones he trusted with the care of Frauline Trucy and Herr Forehead but they might not be enough if an officer of the law could be abducted from the station with no one seeing it. He couldn't conceive a method of sneaking her out that would work and that was the only hope he had.
"Mein Gott," he whispered to the ceiling as a call was patched through, "please let her be all right."
~~*~~
There was a dull pounding at her forehead and her mouth felt like it was full of cotton. Ema wondered if she'd drank too much the night before and the effort of the thought just about winded her. She pressed on despite the fog filling her aching head; after all, if she knew when to stop asking questions she wouldn't be a detective.
So she went on wondering uphill. She knew there was something wrong with the hangover theory but the reason was lost to the fog. After a little mental fumbling she grasped it: she was on a case. She never drank when she was on a case. Not a drop until the confetti fell. Bless Gumshoe. So why was she hung over if she didn't drink?
Maybe mixing caffeine and pain medication was a bad idea. Yes, that could be it. Except something didn't fit with that either. Something about the medication. Oh, yes, she wasn't taking any. Well, she was, but it was only a couple aspirin instead of the horse tranquilizers they gave her. How could they expect her to work with those things in her system? So it wasn't a reaction of the coffee and pills.
She tried to dismiss the whole concept but a piece of it stayed: Coffee. It seemed important. It was important; that's how the suspect got to Apollo. Drugging the coffee was brilliant, really, since Apollo drank it black with one shot of espresso and three of almond for good measure. Even something as bitter as concentrated spider venom would go undetected. Of course, Ema didn't go to such lengths but she was certainly no stranger to day old brew that had been scalded and burnt to a bitterness that was probably close to the flavor of spider venom.
Coffee. Venom. Drugged.
She tried to twitch numb fingers and then became aware of the shackles.
~~*~~
Phoenix stared at the road ahead, barely taking in the shapes of the few cars on the highway at three in the morning. There were no leads. They couldn't even find anyone Dahlia associated with who had the access or knowledge to refine the venom into a weapon. The trail cold before anyone found it.
He wasn't angry at the police for the lack of answers; he knew how the game worked. Whoever was responsible did a very good job. If the suspicions about the source of Dahlia's poison were correct then this person planned the attack for years. It was almost impossible to think that someone could have a perfect plan and still be a member of the human race, but then maybe this was just the singular perfect in a million.
Perfect so far, he reminded himself. Perfect with the facts as they stand. They can't possibly be finished with their revenge. If Dahlia stopped with her first murder then she'd have gotten away with it...
The thought didn't exactly comfort.
He spared a glance at Iris. She was slumped in the passenger seat in a way that conveyed the defeat and worry that ate away at them both. She looked out the side window without seeing anything, her quiet sighs the only thing breaking the silence between them. She wrung her hands in compulsive guilt and flinched whenever she passed a mirror in the hospital hallways. Phoenix kept the silence; he knew that the irrational wasn't easily swayed by the logic of it not being her fault by extension. And after this last incident...
Another victim. Whereabouts unknown. Condition unknown. Ema. The girl who came to him years ago for help and now...
He hit the turn signal with more force than was necessary. Iris jumped but said nothing. She knew that the irrational was hard to sway by logic. Particularly when the irrational had such good logical footing.
They were on their way to the Andrews house to retrieve another duffle of clothes and a few sentimental treasures. They were to go into witness protection until the poisoner was caught. He couldn't very well leave Trucy alone at a time like this, but the thought of staring at a wall when he could be out there looking for clues, looking for Ema... His grip on the wheel tightened as what ifs raced through his head. He couldn't think of a time in his life when he felt more helpless.
Three policemen were in the front yard when Phoenix and Iris arrived. They were ushered into the house as quickly as possible by one while the other two guarded the door and the car. Even more officers and forensic scientists milled around inside. They were packing up equipment and putting things back where they found them as best they could. While no obvious contaminants were found the precise nature of poison testing left everything to question, so Iris and Phoenix were given gloves and breathing masks to wear. They were instructed to put everything in evidence bags and that whatever they took would have to be cleaned before they used it.
Phoenix could tell that this whole ordeal was taking its toll on Iris and that she was reaching a breaking point. Having to go through her own home in protective gear was just another lead weight on the straining camel's back. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't do more harm that good, so he followed her instructions and asked to-the-point questions when it was required.
They came down the stairs just as one of the officers called for them. When they stepped into the kitchen turned technological center, he showed them his laptop and an image that Prosecutor Gavin just sent.
It was a photograph of another note written in the same hand. This time the paper was made to look like parchment with cartoony line drawings of castles and mythological beasts scrawled in the margins. The words were drawn in thick and weighty black that bled to blue around the edges. Phoenix and Iris read it without a word.
PRETTY BOOK OF CHILDHOOD TIME
TELLING TALES OF CHILDISH RHYME
DRAGON DREAD AND KNIGHTED BRAVE
SEEKS HIS MAIDEN'S HEART TO SAVE
I TELL TALE OF BUTTERFLY
BOUND TO BLACKEST GEMINI
FOULEST FOX OF TRAITOR'S WAY
TOOK THIS BEAUTY'S LIFE AWAY
WOUNDED RAT WITH WHITEST COAT
DROWNED WITHIN THE CASTLE MOAT
IN THE DARK SHE'S SCARED AND BLIND
BODY YOU WILL NEVER FIND
After a few long minutes Iris suddenly flung herself away, stumbling into the living room to sink onto a couch and sob. Phoenix's mouth was a thin line and his hands clenched as he stared the image before him. At length the officer stood up and apologized, mostly to Iris, as he told them that he needed to pack up and get back to the station to help with analysis, and does this mean anything to you that isn't obvious? Iris shook her head, hands still clamped over her mouth in something half horror and half nausea. Phoenix said a soft 'no' after he reread it a couple more times. Nothing new. No clue as to where Ema was. Nothing to help.
Phoenix and one of the forensic scientists put all the clothes and keepsakes in the back of the Andrews' car. Iris couldn't stop crying and barely made it to the passenger seat on her own. Phoenix mechanically buckled his seat belt and started the car. He was thinking of the time when Maya had been kidnapped; it had been terrifying, but compared to this new danger it was nothing. He tried to shut down his mind but his imagination supplied image after image of what could be happening to Ema. Iris's sobs provided a fitting backdrop to macabre mental show.
When raindrops started making their own music against the windshield Iris found the strength to force herself quiet. She started whispering to herself in a muted sing-song; Phoenix didn't have to hear the words to know she was reciting the poems. From the chance syllable he caught every so often she knew she was going over them all. They chorused in his head in a disorganized jumble of words. Still, nothing.
The miles slipped away. Streetlights came fewer as the scenery faded from city to country. The rain came down harder, not yet a downpour but promising to get there, to the point where the noise on the metal roof almost drowned out the verse. Still Iris whispered and still Phoenix gripped the wheel in fear he couldn't quell. He latched onto the thought of their destination like a lifeline: the Fey Manor. Neither Maya nor Pearl nor any of the other mediums at the compound could pierce the darkness and find the truth. The only comfort was knowing that Maya couldn't call Ema into her body yet.
'Yet' being the operative word.
Phoenix shook his head as if that would dislodge the haunting thought and tried his best to focus on the road.
After a few minutes he realized that Iris had stopped her impromptu poetry reading. He glanced over; she was looking out the window with a frown on her face. It wasn't the usual frown of worry but one of deep thought. He watched her. his eyes darting back and forth between her and the road, as she slowly raised her hand to touch the glass, fanning out her fingers as if she could catch the rain on the other side. The next time she spoke it was without waver or doubt.
"Drowned. And the riverside. And the shore."
Her voice rose in volume and intensity as her eyes took on a wild look. Phoenix pulled the car over to the side of the road and stared at her as she continued with mad gestures.
"Black dirt, a well-oh god oh god oh god!"
She turned and grabbed his arm, clutched at him and looked at him with begging eyes. The rain pounded down over their heads as she stumbled over her words and he tried desperately to understand what was going on.
"Phoenix-oh god please let me be right-Phoenix, I know where she is."
ANYWAY
EDIT: Forgot to make the poem big and bold.
Title: Childish Rhyme
Chapter: 6/? ............ Plan Unfold, Terror Told
Rating: R for safety, creepiness and some violence
Spoilers: pretty much everything from the first game to the fourth
Warnings: This fic will be heavily into heavy levels of unsettling and creepy. There might be one or two incidents of real violence towards the end but for the most part it's children staring with dead eyes. Ye be warned.
Summery: A fairy tale on fairy wing is something to make the birds all sing. Still I wonder what tale we sow since all I hear are the calls of the crow.
Klavier was so oblivious to the world in his flight up the stairs that he knocked a clerk into the wall when he reached the landing near his office. The fact that she had an obvious limp that he'd just made worse was the only thing that broke him out of his tunnel vision long enough to help her off the ground. He took the moment to tell her that the coffee was poisoned and then he was off again.
He almost broke the key getting it into the lock and almost tore the considerable door off its hinges but then he was in his office. Some small, delirious part of him chuckled at the fact that he was replaying moments spent with Detective Skye in his mind even as he fumbled for the phone's PA button. There was a song somewhere in seeing someone else's life flash before your eyes, to be sure. A ballad in a slow tempo with an acoustic guitar...
He managed to squash the voice as he grabbed his desk for support and all but shouted into the receiver.
"Achtung! Detective Skye has been drugged and kidnapped! Do not drink or eat anything and search everything. If she hasn't left the building then I want her found."
Using conventional lines he instructed a patrolman to take a forensic investigator down to the locked archives even as he texted both Protek and Serv. The twins were the only ones he trusted with the care of Frauline Trucy and Herr Forehead but they might not be enough if an officer of the law could be abducted from the station with no one seeing it. He couldn't conceive a method of sneaking her out that would work and that was the only hope he had.
"Mein Gott," he whispered to the ceiling as a call was patched through, "please let her be all right."
~~*~~
There was a dull pounding at her forehead and her mouth felt like it was full of cotton. Ema wondered if she'd drank too much the night before and the effort of the thought just about winded her. She pressed on despite the fog filling her aching head; after all, if she knew when to stop asking questions she wouldn't be a detective.
So she went on wondering uphill. She knew there was something wrong with the hangover theory but the reason was lost to the fog. After a little mental fumbling she grasped it: she was on a case. She never drank when she was on a case. Not a drop until the confetti fell. Bless Gumshoe. So why was she hung over if she didn't drink?
Maybe mixing caffeine and pain medication was a bad idea. Yes, that could be it. Except something didn't fit with that either. Something about the medication. Oh, yes, she wasn't taking any. Well, she was, but it was only a couple aspirin instead of the horse tranquilizers they gave her. How could they expect her to work with those things in her system? So it wasn't a reaction of the coffee and pills.
She tried to dismiss the whole concept but a piece of it stayed: Coffee. It seemed important. It was important; that's how the suspect got to Apollo. Drugging the coffee was brilliant, really, since Apollo drank it black with one shot of espresso and three of almond for good measure. Even something as bitter as concentrated spider venom would go undetected. Of course, Ema didn't go to such lengths but she was certainly no stranger to day old brew that had been scalded and burnt to a bitterness that was probably close to the flavor of spider venom.
Coffee. Venom. Drugged.
She tried to twitch numb fingers and then became aware of the shackles.
~~*~~
Phoenix stared at the road ahead, barely taking in the shapes of the few cars on the highway at three in the morning. There were no leads. They couldn't even find anyone Dahlia associated with who had the access or knowledge to refine the venom into a weapon. The trail cold before anyone found it.
He wasn't angry at the police for the lack of answers; he knew how the game worked. Whoever was responsible did a very good job. If the suspicions about the source of Dahlia's poison were correct then this person planned the attack for years. It was almost impossible to think that someone could have a perfect plan and still be a member of the human race, but then maybe this was just the singular perfect in a million.
Perfect so far, he reminded himself. Perfect with the facts as they stand. They can't possibly be finished with their revenge. If Dahlia stopped with her first murder then she'd have gotten away with it...
The thought didn't exactly comfort.
He spared a glance at Iris. She was slumped in the passenger seat in a way that conveyed the defeat and worry that ate away at them both. She looked out the side window without seeing anything, her quiet sighs the only thing breaking the silence between them. She wrung her hands in compulsive guilt and flinched whenever she passed a mirror in the hospital hallways. Phoenix kept the silence; he knew that the irrational wasn't easily swayed by the logic of it not being her fault by extension. And after this last incident...
Another victim. Whereabouts unknown. Condition unknown. Ema. The girl who came to him years ago for help and now...
He hit the turn signal with more force than was necessary. Iris jumped but said nothing. She knew that the irrational was hard to sway by logic. Particularly when the irrational had such good logical footing.
They were on their way to the Andrews house to retrieve another duffle of clothes and a few sentimental treasures. They were to go into witness protection until the poisoner was caught. He couldn't very well leave Trucy alone at a time like this, but the thought of staring at a wall when he could be out there looking for clues, looking for Ema... His grip on the wheel tightened as what ifs raced through his head. He couldn't think of a time in his life when he felt more helpless.
Three policemen were in the front yard when Phoenix and Iris arrived. They were ushered into the house as quickly as possible by one while the other two guarded the door and the car. Even more officers and forensic scientists milled around inside. They were packing up equipment and putting things back where they found them as best they could. While no obvious contaminants were found the precise nature of poison testing left everything to question, so Iris and Phoenix were given gloves and breathing masks to wear. They were instructed to put everything in evidence bags and that whatever they took would have to be cleaned before they used it.
Phoenix could tell that this whole ordeal was taking its toll on Iris and that she was reaching a breaking point. Having to go through her own home in protective gear was just another lead weight on the straining camel's back. He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't do more harm that good, so he followed her instructions and asked to-the-point questions when it was required.
They came down the stairs just as one of the officers called for them. When they stepped into the kitchen turned technological center, he showed them his laptop and an image that Prosecutor Gavin just sent.
It was a photograph of another note written in the same hand. This time the paper was made to look like parchment with cartoony line drawings of castles and mythological beasts scrawled in the margins. The words were drawn in thick and weighty black that bled to blue around the edges. Phoenix and Iris read it without a word.
PRETTY BOOK OF CHILDHOOD TIME
TELLING TALES OF CHILDISH RHYME
DRAGON DREAD AND KNIGHTED BRAVE
SEEKS HIS MAIDEN'S HEART TO SAVE
I TELL TALE OF BUTTERFLY
BOUND TO BLACKEST GEMINI
FOULEST FOX OF TRAITOR'S WAY
TOOK THIS BEAUTY'S LIFE AWAY
WOUNDED RAT WITH WHITEST COAT
DROWNED WITHIN THE CASTLE MOAT
IN THE DARK SHE'S SCARED AND BLIND
BODY YOU WILL NEVER FIND
After a few long minutes Iris suddenly flung herself away, stumbling into the living room to sink onto a couch and sob. Phoenix's mouth was a thin line and his hands clenched as he stared the image before him. At length the officer stood up and apologized, mostly to Iris, as he told them that he needed to pack up and get back to the station to help with analysis, and does this mean anything to you that isn't obvious? Iris shook her head, hands still clamped over her mouth in something half horror and half nausea. Phoenix said a soft 'no' after he reread it a couple more times. Nothing new. No clue as to where Ema was. Nothing to help.
Phoenix and one of the forensic scientists put all the clothes and keepsakes in the back of the Andrews' car. Iris couldn't stop crying and barely made it to the passenger seat on her own. Phoenix mechanically buckled his seat belt and started the car. He was thinking of the time when Maya had been kidnapped; it had been terrifying, but compared to this new danger it was nothing. He tried to shut down his mind but his imagination supplied image after image of what could be happening to Ema. Iris's sobs provided a fitting backdrop to macabre mental show.
When raindrops started making their own music against the windshield Iris found the strength to force herself quiet. She started whispering to herself in a muted sing-song; Phoenix didn't have to hear the words to know she was reciting the poems. From the chance syllable he caught every so often she knew she was going over them all. They chorused in his head in a disorganized jumble of words. Still, nothing.
The miles slipped away. Streetlights came fewer as the scenery faded from city to country. The rain came down harder, not yet a downpour but promising to get there, to the point where the noise on the metal roof almost drowned out the verse. Still Iris whispered and still Phoenix gripped the wheel in fear he couldn't quell. He latched onto the thought of their destination like a lifeline: the Fey Manor. Neither Maya nor Pearl nor any of the other mediums at the compound could pierce the darkness and find the truth. The only comfort was knowing that Maya couldn't call Ema into her body yet.
'Yet' being the operative word.
Phoenix shook his head as if that would dislodge the haunting thought and tried his best to focus on the road.
After a few minutes he realized that Iris had stopped her impromptu poetry reading. He glanced over; she was looking out the window with a frown on her face. It wasn't the usual frown of worry but one of deep thought. He watched her. his eyes darting back and forth between her and the road, as she slowly raised her hand to touch the glass, fanning out her fingers as if she could catch the rain on the other side. The next time she spoke it was without waver or doubt.
"Drowned. And the riverside. And the shore."
Her voice rose in volume and intensity as her eyes took on a wild look. Phoenix pulled the car over to the side of the road and stared at her as she continued with mad gestures.
"Black dirt, a well-oh god oh god oh god!"
She turned and grabbed his arm, clutched at him and looked at him with begging eyes. The rain pounded down over their heads as she stumbled over her words and he tried desperately to understand what was going on.
"Phoenix-oh god please let me be right-Phoenix, I know where she is."