Water burned my head and neck as the two men in white hazmat outfits held me under the showered. All around me was white upon white, upon white, the only exception was Agent Smith who smirked just a bit as his mirrored sunglasses reflected my discomfort.
“Strip her down and use the brushes. She was contaminated by the Night Gaunt, leave no part of her free from decontamination,” Smith said evenly, but I knew his sadistic soul was delighting in my situation.
The men in white grabbed my shirt at the collar, and with one tug tore it off me, exposing my quickly reddening body.
Smith’s head moved exaggeratedly as he looked me up and down, taking in every aspect of my now nude body, “Ms. Remington, you’re sure you never did time at a correctional institution? You’re built like a cell block bull.”
“Fuck off Smith! I’m calling a lawyer you son of a bitch!” I screamed, but he only shook his head and motioned to his men to grab the toilet brushes.
A fine dust was thrown all over my body, quickly turning to paste as the water hit it. “Scrub her well! This should be the best exfoliating scrub she ever had. Scrub her till she’s free of all her contamination, her filthy stink, her disgusting soul.”
I screamed. The brushes were all over my body, tearing my nipples, assaulting my sex, and making my raw skin flush with blood.
“Yes, wash her dirty sins away!” Smith cackled, then froze.
Slowly, his eyes tracked down and as I followed his gaze, I could see the four talons sticking out of his guts. “God, save-“ He uttered before his body as suddenly ripped in half, the blood splashing out against the white walls, and flowing into the water on the floor.
Where he stood moments ago, a creature made of shadow, slim and fog appeared. It was thin and emancipated. Its arms were near skeletal except for tight knots of muscles that moved like living creatures under the skin.
“Night Gaunt,” I hissed and tugged to free myself from my captures grip, but even as I did their claws tore into my skin. Glancing right and left, I saw two more Night Gaunts, smaller but no less inescapable, ripping into my arms as they held me in place.
I felt my muscles strain and the skin tear away as I pulled myself free and scampered toward the door. For a moment, I thought I had freedom, but then my feet slipped on the wet floor and I went down in a jumble. “NO!” I screamed and fought the slippery floor as I tried to regain my feet.
The creature moved closer, its faceless visage, its void of a maw pulled my focus deeper into its mocking abyss.
Again my hand slipped, my feet found no purchase and I flopped around like a stripper in a baby oil wrestling contest.
“Your soul is ours”
“Your soul is ours”
“Your soul is ours”
It called in that multi-tone voice that crawled right up under my skin.
Water hit me again and I squeezed my eyes shut against it.
{Congratulations! You have received, The Sigil of Iron Will.}
{Congratulations! You have received, The Sigil of Awakened Psychic Awareness.}
{+2 to wisdom! Something are better left unknown, but you out of luck when it comes to that! Welcome to the world of the Un Natural! I don't mean your normal Saturday night at Humping Hanna's Country Bar either!}
{+4 Will Power! That's right you are as stubborn as the mule your mother always claimed you were!}
Cold! The water was cold this time, the searing heat vanished, and I felt a confusing shock rush through me.
“Wake up! You’re having that nightmare again!” Mogwai pleaded even as I pulled away from her, drawing my legs up under me.
Lean Hispanic female detective with black hair sleeping [https://images.nightcafe.studio/jobs/Lxc6wzfaVJPPlMmls8vg/Lxc6wzfaVJPPlMmls8vg--3--ryn8x.jpg?tr=w-1600,c-at_max]
“Maybe she needs to see a Chaplin?” A familiar voice called, and I knew Felix was somewhere nearby.
“Or, maybe an exorcist,” Mogwai muttered and draw back to the kitchen table where her mug of coffee steamed.
The nightmares had been relentless since, The Incident at Frozen Dog Lane, and they weren’t just beating up my rest cycle.
On my arms, new scratches beaded with blood, some on top of the ones from last night. “I’m looking like I went three rounds with a bobcat. I groaned and rubbed my eyes gingerly.
“I kicked your racked when you mewed like a cub in your sleep. Doesn’t seem to help much.” Felix joined Mog at the table, and she poured him a canteen cup of the dark roast.
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“It doesn’t matter. I’ve had nightmares before, everyone does after some crazy shit went down. I’ll be fine,” I groaned and got up from the couch.
“I am sure they will, Boss. But nightmares aren’t always just nightmares, who knows what lurks in the passages of the unconscious mind?” A deep male voice said.
My eyes popped wide open as I Identified the voice. “Camden? What the hell are you doing in my house?”
Standing by the sink, Camden stood pealing potatoes, while Henry Holliday looked on with amusement.
Cam grinned and looked back to his task, “Henry brought me.”
Henry pushed the brim of his newly acquired black cowboy hat and smiled at me glassy eyed, and amused, “Camden’s tribe decided the current disposition of the Frozen Dog Lane bunker wasn’t agreeable. In a unanimous vote, they sent Camden back and named you the conditional proprietor.”
“What? No, I…”
“The imposition isn’t without reward,” Henry said and walked over to the table and joined Mog and Felix as all three sat staring at me.
“I don’t want a reward!” I groused.
Henry slipped his hand into the inner pocket of his suit pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Now that is a shame. The bounty wasn’t insignificant.”
Pressing my palms to my eyes I tried to will the Night Gaunt to come back. “Not that reward! I worked for that bounty!”
“I thought as much, but all jests aside, Camden’s Bunker houses a vast library of supernatural and occult volumes, and it sis warded against the un-natural. For a Bounty Hunter in your line, it is perhaps the only safe haven you will find. I would think those rewards would make it worth your time to help monitor young Mr. Camden.
“I don’t need it! I can fend for myself and besides,” I motioned to Mogwai,” she can find anything I need on the occult online.”
“Not really Rhett. Henry is right, that place is a gold mine. I checked out his library when I was pretending to play duck hunt. Cam’s a regular warehouse 13 librarian,” Mogwai said with a nearly contained greedy smile.
“Rhett, I know I didn’t make a great first impression, but I think I really could help you. If you’re having nightmares about the Night Gaunt, and its leaving marks, the Bunker could ward you against its continued psychic attacks. You’d be safe there,” Cam said and stuffed a hunk of pealed potato in his mouth.
“It has a pretty good area for an armory,” Felix added in with a shrug, though he refused to meet my eyes.
“All that, and what do I have to do? Keep Camden on the leash? I asked, hardly believing I was even entertaining the idea, though a good night’s sleep sounded nice.
“I also cook!
Henry nodded, his normally Cheshire Cat grin growing more serious and contemplative “more or less, “ he wavered, “that and monitor The FDL breach.”
Standing, I stomped mincingly toward Henry, then realized that once again I was nearly naked! “Where the fuck are my clothes?”
Reduced to panties and a sports bra, my body was suddenly the object of a lot of male eyes. At least until my glare made everyone but Cam look away. Cam, mouth open into a tiny O, dropped his half-peeled potato into the pot, only flinching when the water hit him in the face.
“I put them in the wash, they were all sweaty!” Mogwai confessed completely un-apologetic. “Besides, I left your underwear, now you just look like you did back when you fought in the UFC.”
“I never fought in the UFC, I never went to prison, and I am not some fitness model! Leave my clothes alone!” I nailed each of them to the wall with a glare, but Camden kept furtively glancing in my direction.
“Then why do you have the prison tattoos?” Felix said with a huff and stunned I found myself looking myself over.
On my left forearm, a mark stood out that I’d never seen before. It looked like something a kid would have drawn. It looked like a six with the top line crossed by the bottom line of a backward seven, then three lines on the spot above the cross and two dots.
I rubbed at my arm frantically, but it clearly wasn’t coming off, “What the hell is on my arm?”
Camden set down his knife and hurried over, his big hands grasping my arm firmly as he looked down at it. “This is a magic Sigil. Where did you get this?”
“How the hell should I know? I just told you I didn’t know where it came from.”
“Camden fished around in his bib-overalls and came out with a monocle and fitted it to his eye.
“It’s the angelic sigil for Willpower. A type of pictorial signature of an angel or other entity. You are sure you have no idea where it came from?” Cam asked as he examined it.
“You haven’t the strength.”
“Your willpower isn’t enough.”
“Your mind will snap like old bones.”
The words echoed in my memory and a chill ran down my spine as I remembered the Night Gaunt taunting me as it assaulted my mind.
“Oh, you hit a nerve!” Henry called, “Ms. Remington, you just turned a pale as Greek marble.”
“Th…th…the Night Gaunt was mocking me about my will power. I resisted it and that’s when it threw me to the ground,” I said, my voice shaking.
“You resisted a Night Gaunt’s psionic attack?” Henry said with a raised brow.
“I…I couldn’t let it,” I stammered, but Camden looked at me with compassion in his eyes.
“Your mark, it’s the sigil for willpower, it means you have the Iron Will attribute. This is significant,” Cam said and took a deep breath. He looked surprised, excited, and uncertain all at once.
“How?” I asked and pulled my arm away.
“This means you should be able to resist any will based attack, As long as you put a conscious effort into resisting, there isn’t any power that can artificially influence you,” he said, then stood up and went back to pealing potatoes.
“What? That’s it? You’re just going to drop that bomb and go back to being Chef Boy R Dee? Hell’s Bells boy!”
“I figured I shouldn’t overwhelm you. You just woke up,” he replied and rinsed the potatoes.
“I doubt you could shock me any more than being woke up half naked in a room full of people and discovering I have a supernatural tattoo,” I scoffed.
“Tattoos,” Felix said and dipped his head toward my rib cage just under my left breast.
“Oh, hell!” I screamed and tried to lift and press my boob so I could see it, but other than the lower curve I couldn’t see anything.
“There is a mirror in the bathroom,” Mogwai said, as if I didn’t own the place.
In the mirror, my normal appearance greeted me. Five foot seven, dark hair, brown eyes and a build that as, Agent Smith put it, “looked like a cell block bull.” Of course, the circular black tattoo on under my boob was new.
“Hells Bells how many of these things are on me?” I yelled and turned to look at myself all over in the mirror.
“That’s the sigil of Awakened Psychic Awareness. It’s most likely why you aren’t freaked out by the Un-natural,” Cam said from right behind me, and despite being able to see him in the mirror I jumped.
“Okay, I still scare you, but for the most part, you react very well when it comes to seeing messed up stuff. It’s not common,” Cam said as his eyes traveled my body like he was looking over a prime rib.
“You don’t scare me! You creep me out!” I scolded him and slammed the door in his face.