victorsierraa:
The quiet, solemn tone in Brittany’s voice speaks of diaster, of them both being on the same page here. This boy and the terrible things that might have been building in his life were like a storm that passed overhead, they left trouble in their wake. Wands and fragmented peices of parchment, things that told a story Victor didn’t think his family wanted to be told. And he hated them, suddenly. Anyone who had known Luca and not helped him, this delicate child. He should have been protected, he should have had better in his life. He shouldn’t have had to suffer. No child should. That was one of the tenants he lived his life by, in this day and age.
Victor walks with quiet footsteps, when he hears the voices in the hall, the way that they carry. His footsteps are always quiet things, delicate. He moves like a ghost, he always has. Being loud was a death sentance, for little boys like him. It was as if he had been surrounded by predators, one wrong step and a branch would crack, would leave him vulnerable and easy to hunt. So he moved like he was sneaking through the night, even when he didn’t really mean to.
He slows, at the sound of it. Delieverances pleading voice, the sound of Jenette, clearly at some kind of breaking point. They’re still unnoticed, in the hallway. And he reaches out to take Brittany’s hand. He doesn’t want to startle Jenette, make her close herself off from Deliverance again when she may be about to open up, when her words tell them that she regrets everything that happened here.
“Father Simon took him away,” She sniffles, tears pouring from her eyes. “To help him. To make him better again. To the old Church outside town. I didn’t think —”
“Which way? How many of them are there?” Deliverance asks, and they’ve taken her hands in their own. Gentle, pleading eyes. They look like the kind of person you would trust to do anything, to climb mountains and do the impossible for you, just because they believed it was the right thing to do. There was a hint of their own heartbreak in their voice.
The directions come in fits and starts out of Jenette’s mouth. Across town and out of it. Down along the river and near the tree-line, with the old abandoned church and the old abandoned graveyard, relics of a bygone time and an old history. Father Smith was a travelling preacher with an ever-growing flock, and he had made a home there for the time being, until the evil that plagued this town could be rectified, purified through prayer — or fire, if it came to that. He was not the type of man who would suffer a witch to live.
When Jenette has finished her tale, Deliverance ushers her away, up to bed and where she can’t get in their way. He gestures for Brittany to come closer, and Victor follows her. Deliverance’s eyes are wide and haunted by something. It is clear just from the way that they look, he has experience with this particular brand of monster. They lead the two aurors out of the house before they turn to speak to them, seeming less caged now that they can stand under the sun. “Okay. You should check out the church as soon as possible. Now. Actually, right now, if you can handle it. I’m going to have to go and grab back up for whatever’s going on in there.”
Victor grabs her hand to stop her from going any farther, and she finds herself, instinctively, squeezing his hand in return for the long moment as they listen to the tense conversation around the corner, as Jenette explains, if it can be called an explanation, as she gives directions to where she hopes—god, she hopes—they’ll be able to find Luca before any more harm is done. She’s already ready to rush down there when Deliverance tells them to do as much; she wishes she could say she was clear-headed enough to think about back-up, but she’s glad that they are.
“We’ll get there as soon as we can, see if he’s in immediate danger, extract him if we can while we wait for you,” she confirms. “We’ll be fine, go ahead.”
They’ll be fine. She knows they will. Between her and Victor, she couldn’t feel more confident in that. It’s the fallout that will be messy—how many people are there, how much damage this Father Simon may have already done, because it sounds like Luca isn’t the first time this has happened. How many no-majs they’ll have to obliviate, if a fight or something breaks out. But their job is to get Luca to safety, and she trusts Victor more than almost anyone else to make sure it happens.
They can’t apparate—Jenette’s directions were clear enough for someone walking, or driving, but it wouldn’t be safe to try to get there without knowing what it actually looks like, no designated apparation location. So the second she breaks from Deliverance, realizes she still has Victor’s hand in hers, she turns to him.
“I saw keys, on the kitchen counter,” she says. “Probably for a car in the garage. It’ll be faster and safer to drive than any other option.”
She grateful, sharply and suddenly, for her father’s insistence that she learn how to drive a car even if she’d be using mostly fancy magic to get from place to place. He’d insisted on teaching her, and on teaching Todd, in his old beat-up stick shift truck the year they both turned sixteen, and she’d spent weekends practicing all year until she got it down. She doesn’t drive much, now, but it’s not something you forget how to do.
.
