arboreal_priestess | The Sewers, Baltimore, Sunday Afternoon

Once more, Verity stepped off the bottom rung of the ladder, snapping her cave light on and clipping it to her belt. The light illuminated what looked like a perfectly normal stretch of sewer, from the water-stained brick of the walls to the unrecognizable sludge thinly coating the concrete floor. She drew her .45 and started forward, holding it in front of her in the classic television cop position. All she needed to do was follow the trail without freaking out. And hopefully without encountering any more unwanted lizard-men. Verity wasn't normally one to run from a fight, but if she could avoid this one, she wouldn't be sorry.

Fifteen minutes later, she'd walked probably half a mile into the dark beneath the city, descending gently all the while, and she hadn't seen anything bigger than a rat. She was starting to think she was on a wild-goose chase when an air current wafted up from the depths and addressed her nose with an aroma that had absolutely no business being in the sewer:

The sweet scent of pine resin mixed with molasses.

Piyusha was somewhere ahead of her. Somewhere in the dark. Gritting her teeth, Verity adjusted her grip on the gunstock and kept walking.

The sticky-sweet smell of Piyusha’s blood got stronger as Verity descended, becoming harder to ignore with every step. Part of her took careful note of the strength of the smell, analytically trying to figure out whether Madhura blood contained some chemical compound that made it smell stronger as it dried. Maybe it worked as a deterrent to predators, or as an attractant for some natural prey? Lots of cryptids had blood with interesting qualities, at least from a human standpoint. Cuckoos bled antibiotics; giant swamp bloodworms bled a gummy slime that attracted damn near any predator worth the name; incubi and succubi bled something that was basically an open call to sex. It was all part of the barely-comprehensible circle of cryptid life. Disney it wasn't, but it definitely kept things interesting, especially when her mom forgot to label the plasma in the family's medical emergency kit.

It was easy to regard the smell of Madhura blood as a relief, given the sewer-stink alternatives--as long as Verity didn't think too much about what the strength of the smell meant. If Piyusha had been human, losing this much blood would have killed her for sure. Not knowing much about Madhura physiology, the hope was that she had more reserves than a human girl her size.

Hope died when Verity's foot hit something soft. She looked down and met Piyusha’s staring, sightless eyes with something from the strange, empty country that sits between sorrow and disappointment. She was naked, with black runes sketched down the length of her body in what looked like it was probably Sharpie. It hurt her eyes if she tried too hard to focus on them. Verity holstered the gun before pulling her phone from her pocket, and whispered soft apologies as she took blurry digital photos of the corpse. She didn't know enough about Madhura culture to know if this was considered desecration, but she needed to document those runes. Hopefully her father could tell her what they meant. Whatever it was, it wasn't anything good. Nothing written in Sharpie on a corpse ever was.

Once she was done with the unpleasant task of photographing Piyusha’s body, Verity tucked the phone away and knelt, beginning the even more gruesome task of examining her wounds. Whoever took her had slit her throat just below her jaw, covering the runes on her chest and collarbones with a gummy-looking veil of watery red blood. There wasn't enough blood for that to have been the wound that killed her; she’d already been bled almost dry by that point, probably via the slashes running down the length of her forearms and calves. Verity just hoped Piyusha'd been numb before they cut out her heart. It was a small thing to hope for, given the obvious and undeniable violence of her death. It was the only thing she had left to hope.

Her expression was a mixture of terror and raw confusion, like she hadn't been able to believe what was happening to her. Verity blinked back tears as she reached down and brushed her eyelids closed. There was still a faint, lingering warmth to her skin, but not much; she’d been dead for a while.

"I'm so sorry, Piyusha," she whispered. "If I'd known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have left you alone. I'm so, so sorry."

Piyusha didn't answer.

Verity straightened, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of one hand. She couldn't move the body alone, and she wasn't going to make Piyusha's brothers come down into the dark. Maybe Ryan from Dave's could help. Tanuki were stronger than they look, even when they were in their human forms; he'd probably be able to shift her without any real—

Something hissed in the darkness ahead. Verity's head snapped up, shoulders locking as she took in the vulnerability of her position. Retreat was probably the best approach in this situation. She could return to collect Piyusha’s body, with Ryan as backup and, more importantly, she wouldn't wind up dead in a sewer.

The hissing started up behind her, even louder than the hissing from the front, and just before the hissing started from the sides. Okay. Maybe she wasn't going to be retreating after all.

Verity	Verity didn't want to open with gunfire in an enclosed space until she knew exactly how many opponents she was dealing with. Since she'd lost her telescoping baton the last time they'd tangled with the Sleestaks, she'd been reduced to sharp things. That was okay, though. She liked sharp things. Reaching back, she drew the machete from behind her backpack with one hand, and grabbed the flensing knife from her belt with the other. Nice, sharp, and capable of hitting bone in a single thrust if she used it correctly. If she ever wanted to see daylight again, she'd damn well better use it right. "Well?" she asked the hissing darkness. "Are we going to do this thing, or what?"
Ugh, These Guys Again?	The darkness boiled, and out of it came the servitors. There was no posturing this time; they moved with the speed of striking cobras, coming too fast for Verity to count. This gang was at least as large as the one she and Liam had fought off together, and that had been a close victory. If she couldn't find an escape route, the best she could hope for would be a swift and reasonably painless death. Piyusha's body provided a mute, horrifying example of what the worst would be.
Verity	Verity launched herself into a high kick, her toe catching the lead servitor in the chin as she slashed out to either side with her respective weapons. She felt, rather than saw, the machete find a target, hacking deep into scaled flesh. The flensing knife hit nothing but air, but at least it drove back the attacker on that side, giving her a little more space in which to maneuver. None of the servitors went down. That would have been too much to hope for. Her lead foot finished its arc, hitting the floor just in front of the servitor she'd kicked. He looked dazed. Verity took advantage of the hole in his guard, bringing her other leg up and kneeing him firmly in the groin. Whatever mutagenic process created the servitors, some attributes of their mammalian origins remained intact; as soon as her knee hit his nuts, he doubled over, allowing Verity to bring her machete down across the back of his neck. He toppled.
Choking Hazard	Verity was still wrenching her machete free when a tail snaked out of the darkness behind her and wrapped noose-tight around her neck, jerking her backward.
Verity	Verity's hand lost its grip on the machete handle, leaving her with nothing but the flensing knife, which she didn't dare start waving around her own throat. She dropped it instead, frantically clawing at the tail that was in the process of choking her. Air had suddenly become a much more valuable commodity than weaponry. Her fingernails couldn't find traction on the scales covering the servitor's flesh. One of her nails caught and tore, the sharp flare of pain barely distracting from the all-encompassing pain in her neck. Her vision was starting to blur around the edges as oxygen deprivation set in. She kicked and thrashed, but her feet didn't make contact with anything. Suffocation was one of those things you just didn't learn how to fight through. Big problem, that.
Candy	A female voice spoke suddenly from up ahead in a language that Verity had never heard before. It managed to be sibilant and fluid at the same time, like choral music written for snakes. The hissing stopped, replaced by confused clicking, though the tail around Verity's throat didn't loosen. The woman spoke again, still in that strange snake-song language, all trilling hisses save the a single word: Verity. There was a distinct note of command to whatever the woman was saying.
Verity	The clicking grew stronger, and the tail around Verity's throat let go, sending her toppling to the ground. She managed to hit her knees and catch herself, preventing gravity from dropping her face-first onto Piyusha's body. Her right hand hit Piyusha's shoulder, fingers sinking into her flesh. Verity shuddered and scrambled to her feet, grabbing her machete and wrenching it free before she turned to look toward the woman who'd ordered her release.
Candy	Candy was standing in the opening of a connecting tunnel, the fingers of her left hand pressed up against her cheek. She was staring at the servitors with enormous eyes glistening with tears. There were at least a dozen, and all of them watching her with the focused intensity of a snake wondering whether or not to strike. "Don't make any sudden moves," she said, following it with another sentence in that strange sibilant tongue. "I don't know how much they actually understand me, and I can't hold them forever. Just...start walking toward me, and try to look like you're not worried."
Verity	"Right." Talking hurt Verity's throat, so she stopped there. Her flensing knife was on the ground near a servitor's foot. She stooped to grab it, and the servitor hissed at her, causing her to flinch back. He didn't make any hostile moves, so Verity kept moving, making her slow way toward Candy. "Can you explain...?"
Candy	"I'm telling them they have to listen to me, because I speak the language of dragons," she said, not taking her eyes off the servitors. "It's an instinctive language. They weren't born dragons, but they should get some of the language through the blood when they're changed." One of the servitors took a step forward, and she snapped something harsh and hissing at him. He stopped before stepping back to his original position, looking oddly chagrined.
Verity	"Should?!" Verity asked, sliding the hastily-snatched flensing knife into her belt. She was keeping hold of the machete, just in case the whole 'should' thing didn't pan out.
Candy	"It's not like anyone's been able to test this for a long time, you know." She cast a brief glance Verity's way, an oddly bitter look in her eyes. "Dragons are extinct, remember?" Bitter or not, as soon as Verity got close enough, Candy reached for her hand. "Hope you can run!" Hissing a final command at the servitors, Candy turned and hauled Verity down the tunnel she'd emerged from. Noise of pursuit followed and they didn't stop until they were in the light.