The Subbasement of St. Catherine’s Hospital, Baltimore, Saturday Night

[arboreal_priestess]

The air in the subbasement smelled like disinfectant and decay—the worst aspects of hospital life—overlaid with a fine dusting of mildew, just to make sure it was as unpleasant as possible. Only about a quarter of the lights worked, which was almost worse than none of them working at all. Their flashlights would have been more useful in total darkness. All they could do in this weird half-light was scramble the shadows, making them seem even deeper and more dangerous.

"I think there are rats down here," Liam whispered, sounding resigned. "Of course there are rats. I'm pretty sure there are always rats when we go into the city."

"It was this or the movies, and the rats seemed cheaper," Verity whispered back because she was hilarious. "And hey, the next time you turn into a cat, you'll appreciate my thriftiness." The last time had been the week before Halloween and she was still giving him hell for it, two days after Valentine's Day. "Now shh. If that thing is down here with us, we don't want to let it know we're coming."

Liam was cautious enough to stay quiet; Verity just wanted to have the last word.

She pointed toward one of the deeper patches of shadow with her free hand - a patch of shadow that they'd been instinctively avoiding. The shadows seemed to darken as they approached, spreading out to swallow the thin beams of their flashlights.

"I love my job," Verity muttered, and stepped into the thick dark.

Fortunately for their desire not to spend eternity wandering in a lightless hell, Verity's instincts were right: they had reached their destination. The darkness extended for no more than three steps before they emerged into a clean, well-lit hallway with cheerful posters lining the walls. At least they seemed cheerful, anyway, as long as no one looked at them too closely. Verity prided herself on having a strong stomach, and one glance at the poster on gorgon hygiene was enough to make her want to skip dinner for the next week.

Admissions Nurse	A white-haired man dressed in cheerful blue hospital scrubs was standing by the admissions desk. He would have looked like any other attending nurse if it weren't for his yellow-rimmed pigeon's eyes and the wings sprouting from his shoulders, feathers as white as his hair. His feet were bare, and his toenails were long enough to be suggestive of talons. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps, and his expression passed rapidly from polite greeting to confusion before finally settling on cautious relief. "Verity Price?" he ventured, putting down his clipboard and taking a step in their direction. His voice had a flute-like quality that blurred the edges of his accent, making it impossible to place his origins as anything more precise than 'somewhere in Europe.'
Verity	"That's me," Verity agreed. "This is my partner, Liam Kincaid."
Admissions Nurse	The white-haired man gave Liam a quick once-over, one wing flicking half-open before snapping shut again. He looked puzzled. "Dr. Morrow didn't tell me you would be bringing an assistant, Miss Price," he said slowly.
Verity	"After doing a bit more research, I thought it would be best to make sure I brought appropriate backup," Verity explained. "If we're dealing with what I think we are, it'll be much easier to deal with it as a pair, rather than by myself." Look, this call had made her miss the portal to Iceland this morning. She was free to bring Liam along if she wanted to. Those were the rules.
Liam	Liam nodded, looking around curiously now that he could actually see his surroundings. "Nice to meet you," he said pleasantly. "I had no idea there was a hospital down here," he added, still taking in every detail he could. Hidden clinics were hardly new to him; the Resistance had set such things up in abandoned buildings in nearly every city with an active cell. But those had been makeshift, all PVC piping and plastic sheeting, ready to take down and destroy at a moment's notice. This looked... permanent.
Admissions Nurse	As usual, it was exactly the right thing to say. The white-haired man smiled, both wings flicking open this time in visible pleasure. "It required a very complicated piece of sorcery to conceal it here, but it's more than worth the cost of maintenance. We have access to the whole of St. Catherine's when we require it, which prevents our needing to acquire some of the more specialized equipment for ourselves."
Verity	"Clever," Verity said, inwardly, salivating over the idea of getting, say, an MRI film of a lamia. There'd be time for that later. This was the time for business. "When Dr. Morrow contacted me, he said you were having trouble." "Yes." The white-haired man nodded, expression growing grim. "It's started again." "Show me," she said.
Admissions Nurse	"Here," said the nurse, stopping in front of a doorway. It was blocked off with plastic sheeting, lending it an ominous air. He gestured to it with one hand, but made no move to pull the plastic aside. "I'm sorry. I can't go in with you."
Verity	"I understand," Verity assured him. She did, really. If Dr. Morrow's report was correct, they were about to walk into a slaughterhouse. The nurse was a Caladrius; a cryptid so devoted to healing the wounded they'd nearly been hunted to extinction before they'd learned caution. They couldn't bear the sight of the dead. Dead people look like failure to them. "Thanks for showing us the way."
Admissions Nurse	"If you need anything..." he began, uncertain.
Liam	"We'll call," Liam said firmly. And by 'call' he very possibly meant 'shout'. Because if things went wrong enough that the two of them needed a rescue? Then things went really, really wrong.
Admissions Nurse	Looking relieved, the Caladrius nodded. "I'll be at my desk if you need me." Then he turned, hurrying away before they could think of a reason to need him to stay.
Verity	Verity watched him go, a wistful expression on her face. He hadn't just been fleeing whatever lay beyond that plastic sheeting. "Caladrius are some of the best doctors in the world," she murmured to Liam. "Their feathers have a supernatural healing quality that no one's ever been able to duplicate. That's why there are so few Caladrius left. They used to volunteer to help with any sick or injured creature they encountered, regardless of the dangers to themselves. It took them a long time, and the slaughter of most of their species, before they learned to be cautious around humanity." She shook her head. "Probably worried that I'll demand my pay in feathers, poor guy." The worst part? Verity couldn't even say she wouldn't be tempted, if she was the kind of person who demanded payment for this kind of thing.
Liam	Liam winced a little, because there were pieces of Verity's explanation that hit just a little too close to home. "Maybe you should remind him you don't actually get paid for this sort of thing," he said as he pushed aside the plastic sheeting. The smell that came wafting out into the hall was enough to make one's stomach turn. Streaks of long-dried blood warred with cheerful pastels for ownership of the walls inside the maternity ward. Most of it was red, although there were a few streaks of green, purple, and even shiny-clear breaking up the crimson monotony. Patches of the original cartoon murals showed through the gore, representing a cartoon cryptid wonderland, with dozens of happy cryptid and human children gamboling through a paradise of acceptance that hadn’t existed in millennia, if it ever existed at all. "Verity..." Liam said slowly. He was no stranger to violence and death, but this was on a whole new level, and he was working hard to school his expression to something carefully neutral.
Verity	"I know." Verity had been the one to request that the room be sealed off without cleaning, to give her a better idea of what she was dealing with. Suddenly, she was regretting that decision. Even the thickest splotches of blood had been given time to dry. She touched one, and it flaked away on her fingertips. "If the pattern holds, it's still nearby."
Liam	"I love it when you say that," Liam said dryly. He pulled out his Global and held it up, scanning for life signatures. "I'm not picking up anything," he reported. Which wasn't necessarily definitive, given how varied cryptid biology could be, but they hadn't yet come across something its sensors couldn't detect. "Looks like we're alone in here."
Verity	Verity hummed a snatch of song, her brain's desperate attempt to try to stave off horror. "That's a start." There was a closed door on the far wall. She pulled the pistol from the back of her jeans, holding it in front of her as she walked cautiously forward. "Cover me?"
Liam	The Global was already clipped back into place on Liam's belt and he was pulling out his own sidearm as Verity spoke. "I've got you."
Verity	Verity took an extra second to give an admiring glance; he really did look good with a weapon in hand. And then it was back to work, the door swinging gently open when she twisted the knob, revealing the darker, seemingly empty room beyond. She squinted into the gloom, seeing nothing but a few sheet-draped tables and what looked like an old-style apothecary's cabinet. Her flashlight beam bounced off the glass, refracting into the room where she and Liam stood. "Looks like it’s all clear," Verity said, starting to turn back to Liam. "We should keep on movi--"
The Manananggal	Something roughly the size of a Golden Retriever - assuming Golden Retrievers had massive, batlike wings - burst out of the dark behind the door and soared into the room, shrieking loudly. The creature continued its flight across the room, giving Verity time to take solid aim on the space between its wings, and get a good enough view to make a hopefully accurate guess at what it was. It could have been your average attractive older Filipino woman, assuming you liked your attractive older women with wings, claws, fangs, and - oh, right - nothing below the navel. Where her lower body should have been was only a thin, pulsing layer of skin, providing Verity with a nauseatingly clear view of her internal organs.
Verity	"Alex owes me five bucks," Verity muttered. When she'd described the thing that was supposedly attacking downtown maternity wards to him over the phone, he'd barely paused before saying, 'There's no way you're dealing with a manananggal. They're not native to the region.' Well, if the thing that was flying around the room wasn't a manananggal, nature was even crueler than Verity'd originally thought. "Hey, ugly!" she shouted, and fired. Shrieking, the manananggal hit the wall, using her momentum to flip herself around and start coming back toward Verity. She fired twice more, and, as far as she could tell, she hit both times. It didn't slow her down one bit. Verity dove to the side just as she sliced through the air where she'd been standing, that unearthly shriek issuing from her throat the entire time. "I fucking hate things that can't be killed," Verity muttered, rolling back to her feet. The manananggal was coming back for another pass. That was, in a messed-up kind of way, a good thing. It meant she wasn't paying attention to Verity's backup.
Liam	And said backup was taking advantage of that opening to slip past the manananggal and through the open doorway, gun in one hand and the other curling around the container of garlic salt in his jacket pocket.
The Manananggal	The manananggal were native to the Philippines, where they lived disguised among the human population, using them for shelter and sustenance at the same time. They spent the days looking just like everyone else. It was only when the sun went down that they opened their wings and separated their torsos from their lower bodies. That was when they flew into the night, looking for prey. Even that could be forgiven - humanity has made peace with stranger things - if it weren't for what they preyed on. Infants, both newly-born and just about to be born. The manananggal would also feed on the mothers, but only if they were still carrying or had given birth within the last twenty-four hours. Weak prey. Innocent prey. Prey that, in this modern world, was conveniently herded into maternity wards and hospital beds, making it easy for the manananggal to come in and eat its fill. As this one had been doing, moving in a rough circle through the local maternity wards, slaughtering humans and cryptids with equal abandon. She'd been getting sloppier, and her kills had been getting more obvious. That was a bad sign. That meant the manananggal was getting ready to find a mate and make a nest...and that was something Verity couldn't allow to happen. The manananggal seemed to realize that her tactics weren't getting her anywhere. With a ringing scream, she hit the wall again, and then turned to fly straight at Verity, her arms held out in front of her as she went for a chokehold. Verity ducked. Not fast enough. The manananggal's claws raked across the top of Verity's left bicep, slicing through the fabric of her shirt and down into her flesh. She couldn't bite back her yelp of pain, which seemed to delight the manananggal; her scream became a cackle as she flew past, flipped around, and came back for another strike.
Verity	Verity put two bullets into her throat. That barely slowed her down...but it slowed her enough that Verity could get out of her path. The creature slammed into the wall, hard. Verity tensed, expecting another pass. It never came. Instead, her wings thrashed once, twice, and she sank to the floor in a glassy-eyed heap, brackish blood oozing from the gunshot wounds peppering her body. Breathing shallowly, Verity moved toward the body. She didn't move. Verity prodded her with the toe of her shoe. She didn’t move. Verity shot her three more times, just to be sure. (Saving ammunition was for other people. People who weren't bleeding.) She didn't move.
Liam	Liam had been doing a lot of reading up on cryptids, these past months. But as it happened, this one in particular, he'd already had a pretty good idea of how to deal with. Sandoval had grown up on stories of the aswang, after all. And like most aswang, the manananggal were weakened by substances like garlic and salt. Pour that on the lower half, and it would sever the connection to the upper half, making the creature vulnerable. "Legs are done for," Liam reported as he poked his head back through the doorway, holding up the now-empty container of garlic salt. "Shriveled up once I poured this on them."
Verity	"Oh. Good. That’s a note for the field guide." Which put Verity in the very awkward position of having to be grateful to Sandoval for something. Their records hadn't said anything about manananggals being vulnerable to either. She touched her wounded arm gingerly. "This stings. Do you remember anything about manananggal being venomous?"
Liam	At least he was dead- and extremely unlikely to drop in if and when Fandom pulled the 'let's bring dead people back for a weekend' ever again? So it wasn't like she'd ever have to admit it to his face? Liam shook his head as he moved to stand by her side. "Not so far as I know, but you might want to check with the nurse." What made it into folklore didn't always match up with reality, he was finding. "At the very least, he's probably got something to clean it up," he added, looking at the claw marks with concern. Healing the wound would be easy enough, and the shaqarava in his palms practically itched with the urge to do so, but it would be best to wait until it had been cleaned up, if indeed it was venomous.
Verity	"Kay," Verity said, a little vaguely. What had they been talking about again? Her legs were feeling a little funny, so she Liam take her arm and lead her away from the fallen manananggal, and the remains of the last infants she would ever slaughter. This was how Verity spent her Saturday nights. "Is the room spinning? Liam, the room is spinning." And sadly, these were the nights she felt most successful. "...You know, I think that's a yes on the venom."

[And we're off on another wild canon catch up! Taken from Chapter 1 of Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire and preplayed AND coded by the insanely awesome firstofitskind. NFB, OOC is always enjoyed! Followed by this]