Day 3 (The Haunted House)

But again reflexes saved her; as a talon came down toward her unprotected face, her claws swung up to meet it. The talon lost.

“Holy living fu-” Jacob was flung backward by something Alyssa couldn't see. Desperately, she struck the monstrosity on top of her, freeing herself and moving rapidly to Jacob's side, eyes scanning the room but finding nothing.

“What was it?” she whispered to him, her eyes rapidly moving from the doorway to the still-living harpy bleeding on the floor. It didn't look like it was going to get up anytime soon, but she'd still have to finish it before she left.


Jacob hesitated a moment with his answer. “I didn't get a good look. Something flung me aside as it left the room.” He paused, then: “I don't think it was a harpy.” His eyes seemed to want to communicate more to her, but she couldn't spend the time to talk. The harpy needed to die and there were likely more of them, and perhaps something else, still alive in the house.

“Will you be okay here?” She asked him, sliding forward carefully toward the wounded beast whose ragged breathing was becoming louder and more raged.

“I'll be fine. Deal with that thing and we can finish this damn job.”

She'd never known him to swear. She'd never really known him to be under any kind of stress at all. Whenever they'd fought harpies before, she'd naturally lead the assault, but Jacob always seemed composed and relaxed during the fighting. Now... whatever he'd seen was something he hadn't wanted to.

She thrust her hand downward and impaled the skull of the creature. It stopped breathing.

Helping Jacob up, she turned her attention to the door through which whatever it was that had attacked him had escaped. A frown creased her features the more she thought of it – they'd looked over the room as thoroughly as reasonable in such limited time as they had, and they hadn't seen anything other than what was there now. Other than the harpies, there hadn't been anything. But apparently there was, and it had gotten past them while they were distracted.

Jacob took the lead again, and Alyssa followed him stealthily into the living room. The cat was nowhere to be found, but there was someone there. At first, she had the irrational thought that Ms. Knapp had come inside after all. She realized the thought as irrational the moment she got a closer look.

The man was barely four feet tall. He was clothed in grimy robes of indeterminate color, his feet wrapped in bandages that seemed to be seeping. His hands were wiry and thin, ending in dirty fingernails an inch long. But the most arresting feature was his face. He didn't have a hair upon it, but it was instead covered with fissures and cracks. A cruel slit formed his mouth, and misshappen teeth filled it. It was grinning at them. Alyssa found herself in the gaze of two pinpricks in its head, shrunken holes of what had once been eyesockets.

“Alyssa D'Eldess. Jacob Keynes. I am very sorry to interrupt your business, but the Voice of the Unknown commands that you leave this place unchanged. Leave, now.” Its voice was calm and rational, but she could hear an edge to it. An edge that spoke of violence and rage, of blood and tears.

“No.” Jacob replied, his voice ice, as he fired his weapon.

The man, whoever he was, seemed to have been prepared. The instant Jacob opened his mouth, he was moving. Who – or what – ever he was, he was fast. Jacob's shot missed him completely, and the creature shoved his hand against Jacob's chest, and pushed hard. Jacob was thrown across the room, slamming loudly into the television at the far side.

Alyssa was moving the instant she saw the assailant in motion. Even so, for the first time she seemed too slow. She knew she was moving almost faster than anyone without the sight could track, but the man moved just faster. By the time she struck with her claws, he was out of the way – but only barely.

“You cannot defy the Voice, child.” he said to her in his horrible tone. “Did you never ask what reason these creatures had for inhabiting this place?” His words never left their cadence as he dodged backwards from another swipe. “They fulfill our master's purpose. The armies of the Unknowable march to the step of Chaos, child, and you too must take up the call.”

Another shot, deafening in the enclosed area, fired. Jacob was on his feet and as talented a sharpshooter as ever. Their mysterious attacker hadn't time to prepare himself, and only barely dodged. He was fast, but not fast enough to dodge Alyssa's follow-up attack. Her claws tore effortlessly across his throat. Blood, brackish and dark, pooled and flowed from it slowly. His mouth opened as he tried to speak, but only vague gurgling noises escaped him. He flailed his arms, and fell over backwards.

Before Alyssa had to react, Jacob was at her side, and fired another shot directly into the thing's head. It was in no shape to dodge.

The rest was routine. There had only been the three harpies, which was somewhat unusual. There were usually more. Then again, there weren't usually inexplicably mutilated gibberish-spewing men either. Jacob was silent while they searched the rest of the house, and for once she didn't feel like prodding him for information. She didn't feel like much of anything, really. If she'd been paying attention, she'd have noticed that she was shaking and cold. But she was looking, instead, for further threats. For harpies or more monstrosities. There was nothing, though, and eventually Ms. Knapp came back into the house.

The devices in the trunk, in addition to their valuable ability to make the Ms. Knapps of the world waste time in setting them up, served another purpose. Each was specifically designed to distract its user from anything else going on. Otherwise the homeowner would likely have ran inside the moment she heard the gunshots. But gunshots did have an attention-grabbing effect, and the most the gadgets could do was delay her.

“Is everything okay in here?” she asked.

Jacob nodded. “No worries, madam, we simply encountered some... resistance from the spirits of this place.”

That was putting it lightly. While the unused room whose closets had been host to the harpies was relatively intact, the living room was a disaster area and the cat was still missing.

Ms. Knapp took in the sights, wide-eyed. She didn't seem to see the corpse of the strange man whose blood was pooling on her floor, which was probably good for her as well as good for them. It raised a lot fewer questions, she found, when their clients couldn't actually see what they'd done. “Is it safe, though?” she finally asked.

“You're quite safe, actually. My assistant and I will simply collect the data from the recorders you've set up and be on our way. We thank you for your help.” His words were as professional as ever, but Alyssa could tell that he wanted to be on his way as quickly as possible. She couldn't fault him. He took her by the arm as they stepped out of the house and moved purposefully toward the vehicle.

“Should we go back for... the corpse?” she asked as they crossed the lawn. She had to swallow her gorge just to allow herself to think of such a thing. “Our bosses might want to know what it was.”

Jacob shook his head and kept walking, not missing a step. He was very much in a hurry, Alyssa saw. “It's no risk to her now. We've got to get going in case its friends come looking for it. The council will have to take our word for it.”

“You know what that thing was?” she said. They'd worked together for years, and not only had she never seen such a thing, Jacob had never even hinted something like it might exist.

He turned back to face her as they reached the car. “I do. The first time I had to kill something, it was one of them. Just like you.” He paused, opened the door, and turned again to add, “We call
them Sightless Ones. And they're very very bad news.”

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