Room & Board - Part 20 (Vampire x Reader x Werewolf)
paranormal fantasy vampire x human eventual triad (x werewolf)
Anonymous asked:
For the prompt submissions a vampire that feels guilty after feeding/attacking someone so they leave obscenely valuable ancient artifacts as payment/an apology?
Links under cut!
x x x x x
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x x x x x
In the end, Jemma’s location spell does the trick. Well, kind of. The enchantment leads you through paranormal markets under the city, finding the right people to interrogate. It turns out vampires have few friends in your city. People who seek out vampires are either signing their own death warrant or ready to stake a few of the arrogant bloodsuckers.
Either way, it wasn’t anyone else’s business. One lead turns into a dead end. Another has no substantial foundation. Yet another tries to extort money and goods out of you, which led to Jemma actually turning that informant into a toad. With each new bit of information, you’re all led further and further out of the city.
Eventually, weeks after Tabaeus left, a tip finally strikes solid and true.
Two states away from home, you sit in a rental car with Jemma, Ewan, Liuva and Bjarka at a late-night diner. Despite the time of night and the fact the building is shuttered up, the mall across the way from the diner is seemingly popular.
Even when you ask the waitress - Tess, she/her - if there’s an event going on over at the mall, she shoots you a puzzled look. When her eyes flick up to the window, you spot a glaze tinting her gaze as she informs you, “Nothing’s supposed to be happening over there. The old mall is about as dead as it ever is.”
Even as the waitress stares, you watch one group head into the allegedly abandoned building as others leave. Some are elegant, others are crude and punkish. Yet it seems Tess does not see or notice them.
As the waitress falls into her rehearsed spiel, you share a look with Ewan and Jemma. Tess doesn’t seem to acknowledge the dense air settling around your group as you all realize she - and likely the rest of the diner’s staff - is under some vampiric sway. You push the discomfort away before ordering.
Something burns in your chest. Tabaeus has to be nearby. This feels like the right place, but you have no reason beyond the smoldering in your chest. You never felt like this with any other lead before. Or maybe you’re just tired of searching, sick of getting your hopes up.
After you’ve finished your meal - saying nothing further of the mall to the staff - the three of you trudge to the parking lot.
“What’s the plan?” Ewan takes out his phone, swiping through random apps. It’s only when he points vaguely toward the highway that you realize he’s putting on a front for anyone potentially spying on you. His green eyes tilt toward you, uncharacteristic seriousness making his words sobering, “Are we heading in now or biding time?”
“We should bust in, magic blazing.” From the backseat, Jemma leans forward, her own phone in hand. She, too, has taken up Ewan’s ruse.
Unlike the other two, you don’t bother with a phone. Shaking your head, you fight the urge to flick your gaze back toward the mall. “I think we should be subtle.”
Silence settles over the car as Jemma and Ewan continue to look at their phones, their hands, you. Anywhere but directly at the mall. If anyone watched your little crew, they’d believe it wasn’t even on your radar, you think.
Finally, something glints in Jemma’s eyes as she meets your gaze, raising her eyebrows. “Don’t malls usually have skylights or vents on the roof?”
“They’ll hear us coming.” Another shake of your head. Besides, how would the three of you get up there without causing a commotion?
Ewan nods to the back where the imps-turned-sugar gliders sit with ethereal intelligence gleaming in their eyes. The two have been silent as potential plans have bounced around the car. Upon them being noticed, Bjarka and Liuvia exchange a look. Wordless communication flies between them until Bjarka nods and says, “We will do it for a pie.”
You frown at their little demand. “I thought you wanted Tabaeus back.”
“We do,” Liuvia says, but they smile in a way that reminds you they are supernatural, “But we also want pie. A strawberry rhubarb one.”
With a heavy sigh, you glance from the imps to Jemma and Ewan. They both return your look with mild amusement and shrug.
“Ugh fine,” you sigh as you open your door. “You could’ve said something when we were still inside.”
“You didn’t ask,” chirrups one of the imps, though you’re not sure which as the door closes. You trek back to the diner, still fighting the urge to look toward the mall. Despite your efforts to remain realistic, you can’t help but feel a little lighter. As if you were one step closer to a conclusion.
—
It’s early morning, just as the sun half climbs above the horizon line, when you decide to put your plan into action. Through a scrying mirror conjured up by Jemma, you watch as Bjarka and Liuvia embark toward the mall from the nearby woods you deposited them in the night previous. The two dart along the dwindling shadows as dawn rises. As squirrels, they easily scale the building and prance along the roof with light steps. They duck and bounce around, taking stock of their options as far as vents, grates, and skylights go.
As the imps decide their next course of action, the rest of you wait. Liuvia and Bjarka eventually pry a grate off a vent and clatter into the metal tunnel. The image on the mirror follows as they scurry through the twisty ventilation. The motion and lighting makes your stomach cramp, so you turn away.
You sit in the backseat with Jemma, who continues to watch the mirror, eyebrows furrowed. In the front, Ewan drives. Last night, after leaving the imps behind, the rest of you drove off and found a clearing to hunker down in for the night. Sleep hadn’t been easy and, now, exhaustion battles in your veins with mounting adrenaline as you near the mall again.
Your plan banks on the fact Lachlan and Tabaeus are different - older, stronger, more powerful - than the average vampire. That should make walking into the mall-turned-vampire-nest easier. Well, as long as Bjarka and Liuvia managed to unlock a door for you.
As Ewan pulls the car into the mall’s parking lot and settles the car in a spot close to the door, he turns to Jemma. “How’re the smallfries doing?”
“They can see us and they’re unlocking the door now,” Jemma answers and, with a wave of her hand, the scrying mirror fizzles off. She’s already climbing out of the car, stowing the mirror in her bag. Despite long conversations last night, Ewan and yourself weren’t able to dissuade the witch from coming along.
“Ready?” Ewan pops his door open, though he’s still turned toward you. Concern etches into his features, as if he’s on the brink of saying you didn’t have to come along. He could handle this, he could save Tabaeus in your place.
But he can’t. Something in you knows this. With a swallow, you nod and open your own door.
The trek into the mall is short and blessedly uneventful. There don’t appear to be any vampiric thralls or familiars standing guard. Perhaps it is hubris on Lachlan’s part, but you don’t dismiss the possibilities of guards or problems deeper inside the building.
Liuvia and Bjarka hitch a ride in Jemma’s bag as Ewan leads your group, with you smack in the middle. He tilts his face up, nose twitching. The barest of a transformation touches Ewan’s features. Some thicker hair, a slew of stubble, the vaguest shift of a nose becoming a snout. He’s delaying the transformation to keep the vampires from sensing him, but you’re sure he’s nervous.
Hell, you’re nervous. You strain to hear the smallest sound, nearly holding your breath the farther you wander into the mall. For the most part, it’s silent. You don’t see or sense anyone else around, other than your group. Though that’s not saying much, considering you’re just a human. With a glance to Jemma, then to Ewan, you confirm nothing seems immediately suspicious.
Though their features are pinched as they focus, neither says or indicates a danger is nearby.
Faintly, you wonder how long he can hold a semi-shift as your eyes take in the corridor. Illumination surprisingly spills in from the sunlights. The stores appear chained and locked, the windows blacked out. Squinting at the locks and darkness, you wonder if there’s more beyond. Is each store a vampire’s personal territory? Is it like a hotel here? Or are they all lower in the building?
All five of you remain as silent as possible as you journey deeper and deeper. Past stores, through the food court, to a stairwell. Jemma conjures up a ball of light without further instruction, lighting the stairs. The aesthetic of the mall holds firm with tiled walls as you descend to the underground section of the mall. A vague chill creeps along your limbs, realizing you’re now underground.
Apparently, the basement is still a commercial area, you realized as the stairs open up to another floor of storefronts. Here, however, the stores are larger and, if you squint, you realize there’s faded signs like ‘bowling alley’ and ‘community development’ hanging over the entryways. No light manages to filter this far down, though. You try not to think about that as you follow Ewan, who keeps close to the walls.
Along with the faint chill, the silence of the area weighs heavily in your ears. It’s too quiet, even as your group scuttles over the expanse of tiled floor.
Quickly enough, you’re led down a slightly obscured hall, before Ewan finds another door. Pushing it open reveals a second set of stairs. This time, the stairwell feels industrial. There’s no happy white-and-blue tiled designs. Just stark metal and industrial grey that devolves into shadows as you peer down into the stairwell.
There’s a brief moment when you look at Ewan and Jemma. Their gaze seeks yours as well, checking to see if you’re still determined to continue. As one, the three of you nod. Jemma hoists the light a fraction higher and it glows a little more intently as you all descend.
The atmosphere grows colder, now raking across any bare skin. Dankness tinges the air as you notice thick gatherings of cobwebs and dead rats on the stairs. Eventually, you come to a landing that leads to a heavy door. The air is locked in your lungs as Ewan slowly shoulders the door open, obscuring your view as he peers around the other side.
After a beat, he opens the door further and the scent of damp and mildew overpowers the air around you. You choke down a cough as Ewan motions for you to follow him into a darkened hall.
If possible, it’s even harder to discern your surroundings now as you follow the werewolf. The shadows seem deeper, darker, more dangerous. The chill in the air bites at your throat. From the light of Jemma’s magic orb, your gaze follows various pipes and catches on rusted, industrial machinery. You have no clue what this all is. Elevator and escalator mechanisms? Gas piping for the food court? Long-abandoned generators?
Whatever is down here, you feel the vague sensation of continuing to go downward, on a gentle slope.
A startle rocks through you as you freeze, hearing something skitter on the concrete floor and echo in the distance. The other two pause. In the span of a breath, fur sprouts from Ewan and his face elongates further, his limbs and muscles growing. A crackle of energy hisses behind you, but you can’t bring yourself to turn and see what Jemma has conjured.
A low rumble of a growl catches in Ewan’s throat as you all wait.
Nothing and no one makes itself known. Slowly, you all carry on in the darkness.
You’re not sure how far you walk when Ewan stops and turns suddenly. You follow as he stalks down an adjacent hall - one you barely even saw - and stops at a wrought-iron door. This time, he doesn’t look at you and Jemma.
Ewan reaches for the large handle, yanking it open so fast your heart trips.
Soft, warm light spills over you from the room on the other side of the door. Rapidly, you blink to dispel the blots of blurry color. The room slowly takes shape in front of your eyes.
Lanterns hang around a large circular room, glowing low and vague. The room is as industrial as the rest of the underground hell, with large pipes and metal and machines. At odds with the metal, however, are mountains of cushions and fabrics draped haphazardly around the room. The pillows and fabrics - of all colors and styles and sheerness levels - bring some color to the deary grey, but somehow that makes the room worse. It sends agitation scraping down your spine.
Then your gaze lights on Tabaeus.
They are chained to a hulking system of pipes, lounging on a smaller hill of pillows. They’re naked, covered only in bruises and fresh bite marks. Their head lolls back, their hair a tangled waterfall. Your heart cracks at the sight, the rest of the world melting away as you step closer to them.
“You’re free to try and take Tabaeus, but… Well, they likely won’t go. This is what they know, this is home.” Lachlan’s voice shocks you from your thoughts. Your attention jerks to Ewan and Jemma, both looking as startled as you feel. Their attention doesn’t snap to the door you just entered from - nor any other dark crevice on your level.
No, you realize their attention is tilted upward. You follow the angle of their gazes and dread curdles in your guts. Lachlan is positioned overhead, on some sort of walkway that snakes through the pipes. He sits on a railing, draped in a way that screams egotistical ease and surety. Others linger behind him, ranging in muted hues and wearing clothing from an array of eras. More pallid vampires start to poke their attention out from the dark shadows of the room, all watching you with red eyes.
Mounting dismay fills your chest before you see Lachlan’s smile twists into something smug. In an instant, rage flares in your chest. Your hands fist at your sides, your shoulders straightening as you glare up at Lachlan. Somehow, through the sick sensations in your stomach, you manage to bite out, “Let Tabaeus be the judge of that.”
Lachlan’s answering chuckle makes your blood boil as he languidly motions toward Tabaeus. “Be my guest.”
