Arthur opened his eyes and scrambled to sit up, breathing heavily. What just… Oh. It was just a dream. A look around confirmed that he must have fallen asleep on the sofa. He rubbed his eyes and with a yawn stretched to reach out for his book that had fallen onto the floor.
The day he found Alfred hadn't been on his mind in a while, but the dream felt almost like he had just re-lived it. The memories of his days as a human, as a pirate, brought a smile to the demon's face. His crew, all the adventures they went on, of course it hadn't been an easy life. But in retrospect everything tended to look brighter than it was.
Arthur had always dreamed in technicolor, bright violets and soft blues and warm reds filling his restless sleep. After that night in the cave, the colors changed, acid greens and splashes of bold crimson and delicate pinkish-purples that did their best to drive the other, less pleasant colors away. Nights after their reunion with Vivi had been better, sea tones creeping back into his slumber, and holding the line against the darker shades.
Tonights dream was different, first in that he was certain he was dreaming and second, that everything was black except for a hellish orange light that wrapped around his limbs, holding him immobile one moment and then forcing reluctant movement that he fought against with everything in him, remembering with terror the last time his body had moved without his permission. He looked down at his arms, trying to claw at the lurid orange that held him, but his claws weren’t there, replaced with blunt nails on massive tanned hands below white sleeves. He knew those hands, having clung to them desperately, both before and after the cavern.
LEWIS!
He came awake like a drowning man, gasping for air and flailing against the sheet tangled around his legs, claws scoring great rents in the linen. His wings beat the air frantically and he tumbled off the couch where he’d been napping.
Unlike the graceless awakening, he landed in a neat crouch, legs tucked under him, ready to spring at some unseen enemy, wings mantled and tail lashing like an angry cat’s. A low growl rumbled in his chest.
Vivi, curled up in an overstuffed armchair with a book, yelped in startlement, the book going flying.
“Artie? Are you okay? What happened?” She sprang to her feet and rushed to him, coming to an abrupt halt a foot away as his growl deepened. “Arthur?” she offered cautiously, empty hands held out soothingly.
It took a moment to orient himself. He straightened up, but the growl wouldn’t stop, only lowering to underscore his words as he asked. “Vivi? Where’s Lewis?”
She relaxed when he came up out of the crouch, her expression settling into a familiar one, the mulish frown she got when she couldn’t make someone understand something. “He and Mystery went to the store to pick up food for the weekend. I’m hoping they’ll actually talk, not just glare at each other the entire time.” Lewis still hadn’t quite forgiven Mystery for the cave though he mostly kept his temper under control.
Arthur didn’t respond with his usual “Good luck with that.” Sniffing, he prowled to the door and then outside, shifting unconsciously into the faster gait that using his wings afforded him. He loped back and both in front of the cabin a couple of times before heading down what was now a well-worn path through the underbrush to the hidden spot where they parked the van. Vivi followed him but he had no mind for her, all his attention on that tenuous feeling of wrongness that had been burning under his breastbone since waking. It strengthened the farther he got down the path.
Vivi had the sense not to distract him, only trotting grimly in his wake, her baseball bat clenched in white-knuckled hands.
The van wasn’t parked there, and Arthur moved unerringly over the crushed grasses toward the road. He hesitated only long enough at the edge of the trees to be sure no one was coming and loped out onto the blacktop, turning toward town after a moment of hesitation.
Vivi gamely tried to keep up with his quadrupedal stride, but kept falling behind. As much as it chafed, Arthur stopped and turned back to her. He dropped into a crouch, wings held carefully out to the side. “Climb on.”
Vivi huffed but obeyed, settling herself against him, piggyback. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and pinning her bat between her stomach and his back, wrapped her arms around his neck. He carefully tucked his hands under her hips and hoisted her up, shifting back into the strange, wing-aided locomotion.
“Wanna tell me what’s going on, Artie?” She asked in his ear.
Most of his attention still on that wrong feeling, he answered her absently. “Something bad happened to Lewis.”
“What?!” Her shout startled him and he missed a stride, staggering. “How do you know?”
Recovering, Arthur hiked her back up into position. “I-it’s a little hard to explain. Y’know how Lewis and I had been practically in each other’s pockets, when we were tr— stuck in the cave? And even after, living in the cabin, we’ve been really close. Sometimes, like— I know when he’s— he’s having a, he calls ‘em ‘moments’— but they’re basically breakdowns, when it hits him again, what happened. Him dying and me— turning into this.” The sound of an engine reached them and Arthur darted off the road and into the treeline. When the car had passed, Arthur took to the road again. “I know when they’re coming and do my best to help him through them, and I can always tell when it’s working. I kinda sense it, I guess. That dream I had, that I woke up all weird from? I knew something had happened to him.”
“That’s strange,” Vivi said thoughtfully. “I had no idea you were... sounds like you’re empathic.”
“Dunno if that’s what you’d call it, honestly. I just know when something’s wrong, and right now—? It’s way wrong.”
He missed his stride again, but this time it wasn’t any of Vivi’s doing. This time it was because of the sight ahead of him, the van pointing back towards the way they had come, pulled onto the graveled edge, driver’s door hanging forlornly open. Vivi cursed in his ear, and he let her down, his attention centered on the van and the door standing sadly open.
He let his clawed fingers brush the metal, warm in the sun, as Vivi circled the van, to report that the back door was hanging open too. Arthur concentrated his attention on that tenuous feeling of Lewis. His nose twitched, reporting an acrid scent, and suddenly he knew what he was smelling, the sour fear-sweat of three other men. He hadn’t even known he could do that, and he tried to catalogue every bit of information as quickly as he could, before this new heightened sense abandoned him. One of them had a musky, dry-paper odor that it took a minute to recognize. He was still trying to place it when Vivi spoke up.
“It can’t have been that long ago,” Vivi reported, pulling her hand from one of the bags of groceries he could see over the back of the seats. “The refrigerated stuff that he didn’t manage to cram into the cooler,” She flicked a finger at the sadly battered ice chest. “— Is still cool to the touch.”
He itched his nose with a blunted claw. “Don’t ask me how I can suddenly do it, because I don’t know— but I can smell three other people— men— here. The were afraid. One of them smells like—” he brightened, finally able to place the smell. Vivi was not a casual drinker but she used sake— rice wine— in her spells sometimes. “Like alcohol, specifically sake.”
Vivi frowned. “Why booze? Unless one of them needed some liquid courage?” Then she brightened. “Can you track them that way?”
“Do I look like a bloodhound? I barely even knew how to do this much!” Arthur grimaced, gesturing at himself.
Vivi flicked the tip of his nose. “Okay, but how did you get this far?”
Batting her fingers away, Arthur scowled at her. “Because this is the only road to the store, dammit!”
“Before that. You knew Lewis was in trouble. How?” Vivi folded her arms, implacable.
“I— I dreamed it.”
“You said it, yourself. Because you two are connected.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Vi! Do you think I wouldn’t be right behind him if it did?” Arthur growled.
“Then tell me, which way didn’t they go?”
His left wing unfolded and stabbed the thumb-claw toward the way they had come. Arthur stared at his wing in consternation. “How—?”
Vivi stepped close enough to cup his cheek. “Because you are connected. You can find him through that. Now, c’mon. Help me track down our boyfriend.”
Arthur flushed a muddy brown color. “Vi! He’s not— we’re not—!”
“Only because we never asked formally, you silly greenbean.” Vivi chided. “But we can talk about that later— let’s go get him back first. Onward, noble steed!”
“Vivi!”
“Don’t you Vivi me. You’re faster than I am, even carrying me.” She folded her arms and nodded firmly. “Let’s go find our ghost.”
Arthur snorted at her, but climbed up into the van. The keys were still in the ignition, another worrying sign, but it made it easier. “We’ll take the van as far as we can. Hopefully we won’t have to go off-road again.”
Vivi rolled her eyes but shut the rear door and slid into the passenger’s seat. “Aww, no fun, I wanted to go charging into battle astride my noble steed!”
“No.” Arthur started the van and followed the strange link he had to Lewis. It led them down the dusty highway and to a graveled road running between between two wheat fields. Even in the van, they could not see over the tops of the rows. After he’d gone a few miles, Arthur stopped the van. “We’re close. Should probably go on foot from here. I don’t know if whoever took Lewis and Mystery are expecting us.”
Vivi nodded grimly. “Expected or not, they’re getting us and my bat to the face if they try to stop us.”
Arthur didn’t lock the van, but took the keys, just in case they needed to make a quick getaway. They slid into the waving wheat, headed for the dark treeline that marked the end of the field. The ground rose slightly underfoot and the closer they got to the trees, the more rocks poked out of the earth. It was much darker under the branches and instinctively Arthur hurried his pace. He didn’t like the feel of this place, with its tangled branches and utter absence of the almost welcoming feel of the forest around their cabin. Vivi clung close to his side.
The strip of trees ended abruptly, marked by the tumbledown remains of a wooden fence that was easily stepped over. Beyond it was a stretch of blacktop. “Where are we?” Vivi murmured softly. “It feels like I should know— Arthur?”
Arthur was frozen in place, his wings half-spread and the tuft of hair on the end of his tail puffed like that of a frightened cat. His clawed feet were inches from the shattered remains of a boulder— one that almost looked— scorched. “I— it can’t be.”
He reached a shaking hand out and carefully brushed his fingers over the stone. There was faint tingle in his fingertips, but nothing like the remembered sting.
He looked up, and up, at where the ground had risen steeply, and into the eerie face of the last place he had ever wanted to see again.
He started shaking so hard his wings rattled. “Vi—” his voice came out small and frightened. “I—”
Vivi was right beside him. “Hey, Arthur, breathe.”
He sucked in a gulp of air that lodged in his throat like a stone. “The cave—”
Vivi’s eyes widened in understanding and she glanced up at the menacing face of the craggy rocks. “Oh— I thought it looked familiar.”
Arthur had never had clearer proof of the fact that there were still some tiny gaps in her memory. She remembered most everything that had happened, but once in a while she would get a puzzled look when there was a blank. He bit hard on his bottom lip, the sting of his fang breaking skin giving him something to ground himself with. Gulping a deep breath, he shook himself all over, like a wet dog. “C’mon. W-we have to save Lewis....and Mystery.”
Still gripping her bat with the other, she slipped the fingers of one hand into his. He gave her fingers a squeeze, and started forward, avoiding the blackened remains of the boulder that had seal— He shook that thought off. No. Saving the others was all that mattered.
The entrance to the cave was much like how he remembered it, but for the tattered remains of some yellow, ‘Police line- Do Not Cross’ tape fluttering in the breeze from the entrance. It was a stark reminder of just what they had left in the cave.
At the fork in the path, he was torn between relief and dismay that the faint feeling of Lewis led to the lower path. He didn’t think he had the nerve to climb the other way, not again. Not ever. But he still didn’t want to see the lower part. Most of his memories of it were hazy with fever and delirium, but he knew what they would find. The police might have removed Lew— the remains, but he was betting the signs of what had happened were still there. The closer they got to the bottom of the cave, the tenser he got. “Vi— I gotta warn you, um— we— we both fell down here... It’s not— not gonna be a pretty sight.”
Her button nose scrunched, Vivi glanced around. “Wasn’t it... greener?”
She was right. Though the cave was still smelled of dank stone, and water dripped somewhere in the distance, the green fog that had characterized most of his earlier memories of the cave was gone. Gone but not forgotten, he thought as he stretched a wingtip into his line of sight as a balance over a rough patch. That green tone was now a part of him, as much as his hated claws.
“The mist is gone.” He knew his tone sounded a little short, but Vivi gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.
The tunnel before them opened up and Arthur instinctively flinched from the sight of the towering stalagmites. Several of them were stained a disturbing rust brown, and other, less pleasant colors. Behind her glasses, Vivi’s eyes went wide and she made a sick sound low in her throat, dropping her bat to clap fingers over her mouth.
Arthur stopped in front of her, lifting a wing to block her view of the offending stones. “Hey, Vi, breathe. C’mon, it’s okay.”
Her eyes were wet as she irritatedly glared up at him. “It is not okay, you ninny!. I just— how badly you two must have suffered—?” She waved past his blocking wing. “I knew, I can remember some of it, but—” Her voice broke on a choked sob and she lunged forward to squeeze him tightly around the waist.
Arthur curled wings and tail around her, holding her close. He gave her the minute she needed, the closeness, the reassurance. But he couldn’t give her more than that. “It was bad, for both of us. But we have to find Lew and get him out of here, okay? Everything else, it can wait.”
Vivi pursed her lips and Arthur could almost hear her thinking that they had waited too long to talk about this, but she had to concede the point. Being here wasn’t doing her any good, certainly wasn’t doing Arthur any good, and she was sure Lewis was no better off. She lifted a balled fist and scrubbed at her stinging eyes. “R-right. We have to find Lewis.”
Arthur heaved a sigh and drew his wings back, but his tail, as usual, had a mind of it’s own and clung tightly to Vivi’s waist. She didn’t seem to mind, running her fingers briefly over the tuft of hair at the end, before groping for the bat she had dropped in her desperate hug.
Arthur shivered the skin of his wings a little, trying to shake off the sick feeling that just being here gave him. It took a long moment before he was able to get back the concentration needed to find the tiny trace of Lewis. It led further down, away from the fatal stone spires. He hadn’t even known there was more to the cave, but past the field of stalagmites the floor dropped into a slope, rough walls crowding close. It— felt older here— not just in the age of the cave, but like they were headed into a place never meant for human eyes.
He could still see easily enough, but Vivi’s steps had slowed, faltering. She stumbled a little and clung to his arm to steady herself. “I can’t see anything,” she muttered softly. “A flashlight would be nice, but I don’t want whoever took them to see us coming.”
Arthur managed a weak huff of laughter. “You just want to ride in on your ‘noble steed’.”
“How dare.” Vivi poked the arm she clung to. “But, yes. Onward, my faithful mount.”
“Watch it or I’ll—”
“What?”
Grumbling, Arthur crouched and guided her back into place on his back, dropping his wingtips to the floor for balance, until she was settled. “Just hold on,” he muttered, dropping back down into the graceless, but infinitely faster, strange wing-aided movement he had developed.
The way narrowed again, and Arthur could hear the plinking of water. This part of the cave was still live, with water still shaping the rocks. He could smell wet stone, and although the cave appeared in gray-scale, he could see where water had smoothed the tunnel floor, the rock damp beneath his feet and wing-claws.
A sound echoed to him and he froze in place, straining to hear better. There was silence and then a mournful sound, almost a whine, rebounded from the stone around them. This time Vivi heard it to and stiffened against his back, her grip on his shoulders tightening. “Mystery—” she breathed.
He sped his pace, blunted claws sometimes slipping on the increasingly damp stone. He could now hear voices, carried by the acoustics of the tunnel, but could not make out what they were saying. None of them were Lewis’s familiar baritone though, and fear clenched his heart in an ice-cold fist. He rounded a curve in the tunnel, and suddenly could see color again, the warm amber and reds of firelight, glowing softly from further ahead.
“ — Isn’t it working?”
“I don’t know. This is where he died, the spell led us to this cave and we gathered his blood from the rocks. It should be working!” The voice, heavy with an unfamiliar accent, growled angrily.
Arthur crouched and let Vivi slide down off his back. She edged forward, back to the wall.
Another whine, louder this time, brought a curse. “Dose the beast again, it’s ruining my concentration!”
“I doubt it’s the beast ruining your concentration,” a third voice added, sarcasm dripping from the tone. “And you might want to try a little harder. We’re running out of sake and I don’t wanna be here when that wakes up from the stupor.”
“Then, shut up and let me work. Do your job instead of harping on about that,” answered the accented voice. “Once the spell works, we’ll have all the power of this revenant at our fingertips and you won’t have to worry your pretty little head about the oversized mutt.”
“I’m gonna enjoy using your pet ghost to fry this stupid kitsune.” The first speaker muttered. “Look what it did to my hand!”
“I told you not to get so close!”
“And how else were you intending to get the stuff down it’s gullet? You’re just lucky that I realized what it was back there in the store. You two have no idea how to deal with anything that’s not a ghost!”
“Two hundred dollars worth of booze should put anything on the floor.” snarked the other speaker.
“You are an idiot.”
“You're both idiots. Shut the creature up and let me work.”
Arthur growled softly, edging forward and hoping for a glimpse of what lay ahead.
A new sound shot a spear of ice right through him. The pained groan carried the strange distortion that Lewis’s voice had gained since the night his life had ended here.
The snarl ripped out of his throat before he was even aware of making a sound and he sprang forward. The ground dropped abruptly away beneath his feet, but all he could see was Lewis beneath him, lying spread-eagled on a flat slab of stone, sickly orange magic weaving a cage around him. A man stood above him, Lewis’s anchor clenched in his fist, held over a tiny brazier that burned with that same malignant radiance.
His wings snapped open, caught air, and drove him like a bullet toward the man holding Lewis’s literal heart in his hand. A wild, shrieking cry of rage tore out of his chest and four sets of claws arrowed down on the target of his fury.
“What the fuck, man?”
He heard the cry, but it was meaningless. Red rage and the sight of the golden locket, its color dimmed by the sickly orange, was all that filled his vision. He hit the man with a solid whump, feet first, growling ferally as he crouched over the now prone figure. His blunted claws still left lines of red on the man’s hand as he snatched Lewis’s anchor away. He cradled it close to his chest and leaned down to snarl in the terrified face of the man under his feet, wings mantled over them. A faint gold light underscored the wanna-be necromancer’s pale, sweating features, picking out the horror in his bloodshot eyes. “Don’t take what isn’t yours,” he snarled, low and menacing.
A thin, terrified whine was all that escaped the man’s slack lips.
Vivi’s wild attack yodel finally got through the rage and Arthur lifted his head. “Don’t move if you know what’s good for you,” he snarled down at his hapless prisoner, before turning his attention to the rest of the cave.
One of the other men, the one with a bandaged hand, was already face down next to the furry lump that was a hog-tied Mystery. Vivi was whaling on the third, who was trying to defend himself with a short knife and a hardcover book. Scrapes on one thigh and a tear in her skirt indicated how she’d got down the steep sloping drop-off.
Even as Arthur watched, she knocked the knife away with her bat and kicked her opponent in the balls with far more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary. He went down with an agonized scream. Wincing in instinctive sympathy, Arthur abandoned the gibbering necromancer. Lewis was still pinned to the stone by the orange light emanating from the brazier. His first instinct was to knock it over, but something told him that wouldn’t help.
Instead, he gingerly picked the whole thing up and headed for where he heard the splashing of water. Water dripping down from stalactites had formed a pool, and he chucked the brazier into the water. Hissing, it threw up a cloud of steam and the orange bonds holding Lewis vanished like the remnants of a bad dream.
Vivi was across the floor in a heartbeat, flinging herself on Lewis in a hug. He sat up, closed his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. “Vivi—”
Glancing over to make sure their opponents were staying where they had been put, Arthur hurried over to them. Scratching the back of his neck with one hand, he offered Lewis his anchor back. “You need to stop losing this.”
“R-right,” Lewis’s laugh was a little watery and he was clinging to Vivi like he would never let go.
Without looking up, Vivi caught the wrist of Arthur’s extended hand and dragged him down into the embrace. Lewis freed one arm from her and wrapped it around Arthur’s waist with desperate strength.
Sighing with relief, Arthur closed his wings around the two of them.
A whimper from Mystery broke the moment and Vivi huffed a tearful laugh. “Suppose I should go untie him.”
Arthur reluctantly let her go, but Lewis held onto one of her elbows and followed her over to the prone kitsune. She knelt beside Mystery and began picking at the knotted ropes around his legs. Mystery stirred and flopped his heavy head in her lap while she did.
“Phew, your breath reeks,” she chided.
“Ish no’ my fault.” Mystery roused enough to say. He hiccuped mournfully. “Thish time.”
Lewis groaned. “Don’t start this again.”
“Start what?”
“They clocked him a good one when they grabbed us, but to keep him from using his magic, they started pouring booze down his throat.” Lewis pointed at the unconscious one with the bandaged hand. “He knew the story that being drunk screws with a kitsune’s magic. Unfortunately, Mystery gets very maudlin when he’s not sober.”
“I shcrewed up and tried t’ kill Arthur,” Mystery pronounced woefully. “Nobody’ll trusht me anymore.”
Arthur snorted. “Join the club. I didn’t always believe in me either.”
Vivi huffed, but finished untying Mystery. “Enough recriminations over the past. We made it through, all of us. Mystery, small form, please. I am not dragging twenty feet of drunk fox out of here.”
While Mystery tried to untangle himself enough to stand up, Arthur cocked a thumb at the erstwhile necromancer and his assistants. “What do we do with these yahoos?”
Mystery looked up, a little cross-eyed. “I could alwaysh eat them.”
"We'll save that as a secondary option," Vivi's tone was grim. She stood up and dusted off her torn skirt. Picking up the book from where it had fallen, she marched over to the leader of the group. He had gotten to his knees and she expertly brought to heavy tome up under his chin. His teeth clicked together from the force she put behind it. She bent slightly to meet his eyes. "You made a very large mistake in trying to take one of my boys. I don't suffer interlopers in my territory very nicely. I advise you to move along, and if you know what's good for you, leave Texas entirely.
"You see," she grinned a little too broadly. "We know you and your magic now... and if you try it again, we'll know. And we'll come looking."
His frightened eyes skittered over Lewis, Arthur and Mystery, and Arthur could almost see the calculations going on in his head. A ghost, a kitsune and a demon... that she called hers.
"W-what are you? A—"
Her smile was sharp enough to draw blood. "Oh, I assure you, whatever you're thinking—" she leaned close and dropped her voice to a whisper. "I'm much worse."
She lowered the book. "Now run along, little spellcaster, and think about what you've done..."
Gulping harshly, he scrambled to his feet, roused his moaning companion and between them hefted the unconscious one. They headed for a different tunnel than the one they had come through and vanished into the darkness.
Lewis waited until they could no longer hear them before laughing. "Vi—!"
She grinned at him. "What? I think I put a good fright in them. Plus I've got their spellbook." She sauntered over and threw an arm around his waist and the other around Arthur's. "I didn't really lie. I don't like wannabe necromancers messing around here. And if he messes with my boyfriends or doggo again, I will be his worst nightmare."
A/N: I waffled so long on posting this. Drunk, maudlin Mystery is all @phantoms-lair‘s fault. The reason the spell for controlling Lewis entirely wasn’t working? They used blood scraped off the wrong stalagmite.
When Arthur saw the hairline fractures along Lewis’s locket, when he saw the veins of pink light bleeding out between the fingers of the man in robes, he didn’t hesitate.
Lewis had never seen rage so etched into Arthur’s face, but he had the fullest view of it now, where he was on the floor beside the necromancer holding his anchor. Arthur’s lips were curled back as far as they could go, pink light reflecting off razor teeth. He had taken to the air- something Arthur never did, and his wings were spread wide until they blotted out everything else in alternating beats, shrouding them in just the afterglow of his heart before buffeting them with furious gusts. The only other light was Arthur’s eyes, pupils pinpricks and the irises aglow in golden fire. Even blunted, his claws looked sharp as blades, and with a harsh flap, his wings came up, and his talons came down.
The man cried out as he fell beneath clawed feet with the sound of cloth tearing and something heavy hitting stone. His clothing was shredded in the landing, and shallow cuts where Arthur’s feet had nicked his skin turned to thin red lines. Arthur’s wings came down next, making him flinch as they slammed into the ground on either side of his head and cracked the flagstone. They were still spread, and it caged the two of them in complete black, except for the blazing embers of Arthur’s eyes.
Arthur’s hands came down. He grabbed the front of the man’s robe and pulled him up by the collar, so their face was inches apart. He pulled him so close that his own visage was visible in the reflection of wide eyes. Eyes that moved between Arthur’s own and his fangs. Fear had drained the color from the man’s face and snatched the smug grin he’d had from his mouth, especially while he remained immobile, arms and chest pinned hard to the floor and a demon inches from his neck.
Arthur’s tail moved and snaked the heart from the necromancer’s shaking hand as he pulled him closer, claws just brushing his shoulders and bobbing throat. Arthur bared his teeth just a touch more, before hissing in his ear. “You will never. Touch. Lewis. Again.”
