“Oh, Baby Doll…,” Frank lamented as he closed the poor woman’s eyes.

He had been hiding in a closet of some sort—an artefact or a display for one—and he had not been the only one to have thought to do so, he had soon realised. The light of his lantern near burning him thanks to the cramped space within the container, he had sought to move it away from himself as much as he could, its glow then revealing a child balled up into the foetal position in the corner of its small floor.

The body of one, at least.

From the sight of it, Frank could tell it was most likely a heart attack. He had seen it before, the stoutest of men succumbing to such in the face of absolute terror, the child’s face now frozen in a rictus of horror, still-wet tears cascading from its eyes.

The child’s clothing had been of fine make; A boy’s clothing, judging from the shorts and shirt, but possessing too many frills and loose cloth for him to be certain.

It was stupid to leave that shelter, he knew, but Frank did not want to die like that: holed up in a glorified coffin, waiting to die. Which is why he exited a moment later, sparing a second to close the child’s eyes before stepping away from the uncertain safety of the impromptu haven.

He had expected to die the moment he made his leave, the man then forced to paus a moment in insecurity as his grand finale then came to a sputtering halt. Frank had no idea of what he was supposed to do, then. Escape had always been the obvious choice from the start, but was also the most impossible to achieve. Fighting? Well, he had yet to even see his opponent; How could he land a blow on something that was not even there?

He had puzzled over it for what seemed like forever as he stood in front of the closet, feeling like a fool for not making his final stand more…memorable.

Not that there was anyone around to witness his final moment, none that he could see, at least.

He could not see anything at all, actually, and not merely because of the still present dark. The room was too large, the displays too many and too tall for him to look over, the designer of this place proven an obvious and blatant sadist for the many winding pathways presented to here, each clearly meant to confuse whatever fool dared venture down them.

There was a dim light in the distance, just barely visible over an exhibit of some sort from some unknown Viking colony that had been lost to time, the hint of smoke tainted with the scent of something else in the air informing him as to its source. That poor woman and that blasted French stick were still burning, the growing flames no doubt soon to spread further and more rapidly, left untreated as they were.

Perhaps that rising blaze was why nothing came for him now. But if it was, then why did the much brighter glow of their lamps and the earlier use of the military’s gift not ward off the forces that now haunted this place?

Like that, Frank waited. For something to happen, for someone to give him the answers.

And as aggravatingly seemed to be the theme of this idiotic venture, nothing continued to happen.

So, he decided to do the only thing he could in his final hour.

He spent it all.

What he brought forth were no spells or incantations of high-magic, grand powers meant to destroy or protect. He would have had he the ability or knowledge to do so, but he was just a bum in a trench coat. At best, what he had would have been described as parlour tricks. At best, little spells meant to hide him from the various debt collectors that had come calling over the years. Unusable earlier, not working when someone could see you, and probably not applicable in this situation at all, Frank, never having reason before to use them against anything but dull-witted humans, unable to attest to their efficacy on anything unnatural.

It took over half the magic in his blood to do so. Not a particularly astounding value for all that it cost him; low-grade stuff bought off some mad old biddy from Southend. More than several months’ pay gone in a heartbeat.

He spent the rest of it on reinforcing his medallions and talismans until he had nothing left but his fists and winning smile.

Lost, alone and now broke, in power if not money, Frank began to walk forward. Not to anywhere in particular, he literally just went looking for trouble, wandering around like a half-wit as all that he had spent in preparation began to quickly unravel without use.

Looking around for everything and anything, he failed to notice what was right in front of him, then taking a fall as he tripped over something in his path.

Poor Baby Doll.

The young woman, perfect skin and rounded face, baby fat still lingering on its surface despite being in her twenties, stared up at him with glassy, lifeless eyes, that beautiful picture marred by the dent in the side of her head, a heavy blow having delivered a wound that would have felled her instantly.

Small mercy, that.

He raised the woman’s hand, giving it a tender kiss goodbye before lowering it again, deftly slipping several of her ornate and clearly magical rings off it as he did.

It was his instinct that spurred the action, not his logic. The dead did not need them, true, but he had neither the knowledge nor power left to put any of them to use.

“I trust you mean to return those, Mr. Sullivan?”

“Wolfe,” Frank said without batting an eye.

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Waiting a moment in anticipation of some action from the woman, he then turned to see her clinging to a glass display case nearby, a nasty gash in her side, to which she clung her right hand, the left glowing unnaturally, the woman now absent her lantern.

‘Magic enough to waste,’ he noted. “Anyone else?” Frank then asked.

The exhausted woman shook her head.

He said nothing, having already expected as much.

“So, what’s the plan?”

The woman gave him a mocking laugh, the effort of it causing her to flinch as she clutched at her side all the harder.

“You really think there’s anything we can do now?” the woman asked rhetorically.

Frank closed Baby Doll’s eyes, then rose from where he knelt.

“We can go out swinging.”

The woman snorted, then gave him a wry look.

“Or, we could try running?”

He was about to give a snort of his own when the woman shifted the arm holding her wound, unwilling to let go of the injury lest she bleed out, the visibly painful action revealing the Cavalier’s magical map, a tambourine-like artefact that could portray one’s surroundings upon its surface.

Frank could see that what amount of her blood had gotten on the object had been incorporated into the picture drawn, the layout of the museum, which had before been exclusively portrayed by light-brown grains, was now drawn with a darker, ink-like substance, the dim light available not revealing what he was sure to have been a dark red.

“How far?”

Wolf nodded her head to the side and said, “Several rows, then we’re in the great hall. A straight run to the exit then, unless…”

“Yeah…unless,” he agreed.

Still, a chance was better than nothing.

“You need help?” he asked, willing to carry her if need be.

“Take it,” she asked.

“Huh?”

“The map.”

He gave the woman a confused look.

“No offence, Mr. Sullivan, but if whatever you bewitched yourself with is any indicator of your skill, I am clearly the better equipped to deal with this situation, and having to divide my attention between fighting and reading this thing would be quite the bother, so if you would please be so kind?”

She was right, the woman and whatever resources she had access to were in no doubt superior to his own. He would have cursed her financial status if he were not so desperate for his own to be of a similar height.

Frank slipped the artefact from her hold, but even that careful motion caused the woman to wince from the pain of her injury.

“Can you fight left-handed?”

“When the need arises,” she answered confidently.

Assured of her ability, Frank then looked at the map to see where they needed to go.

“Hey?! You said there was no one else,” he said accusatorily as he observed several small pellets moving on the object.

“I was referring to my immediate company,” she replied bluntly, not a hint of shame or guilt in her words.

Frank said nothing more then. He had been more than willing to leave Germain to his end, so speaking now would do nothing but prove himself the hypocrite.

They began moving then, their pace soon quickening to a near jog as the spark of hope began to grow with each step.

Six rows between them and the open area of the great hall at the front of the museum.

Then five…

Then four…

Then they hit a crossroads, a jumble of first immigrant memorabilia whose origin and purpose remained lost to history, the way forwards not immediately clear, even with the help of the map, its ability to intricately display their surroundings and the various sized objects within it now more a hindrance as it became near impossible to see the path ahead.

What Frank really wanted more than anything right then, more than magic, more than money, was a sledgehammer to knock down all of these idiotic obstacles that barred him from his path to freedom. Rather than focusing on that desire, though, he instead studied the map with a glare as the two of them caught their breaths.

“Mr. Sullivan…Frank?”

“Yeah?”

“Say we get out of this…?”

“Don’t Jinx it.”

…

Frank looked up, not having expected her to actually stop. The woman was nowhere to be seen. He spun around, thrusting his lamp out like a holy symbol, looking this way and that for a woman that he knew was not the type to play jokes even in a normal situation, let alone in one as dire as this.

She was gone. Not a sound, not a motion. She was just…gone.

He wanted to run, but stood fast, his legs frozen in panic, the blood rushing through him growing cold in shock, his breath quickening, his heart pounding, an image of that child’s contorted face flashing across his mind as emotions roiled within.

But that fear soon transformed into an anger that compelled him to scream out, “COME ON, YOU BASTARD! COME ON!”

And once more, nothing happened.

Anger then rising to a full rage, Frank then raised his lamp up high, to then bring it back down with a mighty swing, chucking the treasured tool at the ground several metres in front of him, where it promptly burst into fine display, the small flame igniting what fuel remained within the now compromised canister beneath, another fiery flow blooming upon the well-worn carpet.

“COME GET ME YOU BASTARD!” he screamed once more as the flames grew before him.

Something shifted then. Something to his left.

It came from the ground. No, not from it…not out of it…it came from somewhere else, rising up out of the ether. An inhuman, shadowy thing with no shape. It rose, higher and higher, as it grew and expanded. Near towering over Frank, it began to shimmer and warp, taking on a mockery of his form, the thing now humanoid in appearance.

It reached for him…slowly.

Frank had to swallow back the bile in his throat, the acidic feeling only growing as he realised that this was it. This was how he died.

Doing what he was told never to do, he took hold of the medallions around his neck, a collection that had taken him a lifetime to gather, and, pulling them free, he launched them at the creature, activating them all at once, their individual magics never having meant to ever be combined.

There was an explosion then, the shock strong enough to send him back a dozen feet, Frank only retaining his mostly upright position thanks to the centuries-old tapestry he crashed into.

Recovering himself quickly, he surveyed the consequences of his actions.

Nothing.

…nothing had been done to the monstrosity.

The creature stood still, paralysed more from surprise than any visible harm having been dealt to it. A state the thing was quick to recover from as it returned its focus to him.

It then made its way forward. Again, mockingly slow.

Some disconnected part of his mind thought that it looked larger than it had before. More solid, too.

Frank had now nothing left but his fists and his chicken foot.

He chose the chicken foot, then flinging himself towards the freakish thing with the fetish held high and ready to strike.

The madman he had gotten it off of had been using it to scratch both himself and others, its effects still unknown to Frank despite many attempts at identification over the years, the thing more a trophy than tool to him, but now, with nothing else, he spent what remained of his faith upon it. Like the medallions, he fully expected it to do nothing, either passing through the abomination or breaking upon some unnatural hide, but what else was he supposed to do?

As Frank raked it across the beast’s large and unprotected torso, his oldest artefact instead passed into it with an unexpected strength, the small trinket then pulling him into the monster’s form with extreme force. Into whatever it was. Into wherever it had come from.

Inward, and then downwards.

Frank sank down, further and further, pulled in by a chicken foot small enough to fit within his palm with space to spare, the speed and strength of that pull growing the deeper it carried him. Eventually, he was forced to let go, the depth of wherever it was that he had been brought to too much for him to further endure.

He tried to rise, quickly and desperately, his breath already having been spent in his earlier charge. He was suffocating, suffering as the lack of air made itself known to his body. Frank struggled as he tried to race upwards, putting everything into his desperate attempt to reach an unseen surface of this godless realm.

He did not make it.

Frank’s mouth forced itself open as his need for air finally overwhelmed his instinct to survive, the fluid around him flooding in without restraint as he attempted to inhale it.

He convulsed and thrashed as he struggled for life, soon growing still as he was forced to surrender to the inevitable. Time seemed to stretch then, a moment becoming eternal as the light began to fade from his eyes.

Then, a gentle pull came into being. A sensation akin to the emptying of water from a bathtub. Subtle at first, but increasing as it began to swirl down the drain. And like that swirl, Frank began to spin, not downward, but to the side.

His senses addled, he lost his awareness for a second, missing his transition from that shadowy ocean to being dragged across a warm and well-worn carpet, his body ramming into every surface present as he was driven forth.

Frank unconsciously thrust out his arm in an attempt to halt his journey, failing twice as his speed brought him injury with each try; eventually, succeeding on the third, Frank kept his arms wrapped tight around some metal thing, regardless of the pain, the force around him then wrenching his left shoulder from its socket.

Holding tight, still without breath, the rushing force eventually passed him by, its hold disappearing as quickly as it had arrived.

Instinct drove him to breath, to live. Instead, he retched, then breathed in deeply, and then retched again as he tried to once again take hold of life, his body quaking from pain and horror as he choked out the alien substance infesting it, shuddering as his body came to terms with its near and sudden demise.

Taking in as much air as he could, Frank lay there as helpless as a newborn, still clutching his anchor in fear, which he would later find out was an actual anchor. Having nothing left, he succumbed to a different type of darkness, the man then slipping blissfully into unconsciousness.