Author’s Note: Leo Granton was the one responsible for the murder of Ryo’s parents in the manga this AU is based upon, and the ‘Rai’ Bikky mentioned in the last scene of the previous chapter is a reference to another of Sanami Matoh’s works. Very fun and challenging to see how many characters/references I can squeeze in this story, at least for me.
Disclaimer: Sanami Matoh once again holds all rights to FAKE. However, any original characters contained within are my own (not that it matters much in the end).
[Written off and on between June 30th to July 22nd of 2003]
[Last edited on July 6th of 2004]
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Mad Season
Chapter Six: The Truth
Too caught up in his own thoughts to realize the werker Bikky had stopped, Dee slammed into the teenager’s back; the only thing saving him from falling to the ground was Bikky’s impossible strength, as the werker had grasped his arm as soon he had started towards the dirt surface. Muttering a quiet thanks, the raven-haired man quickly straightened, and looked ahead, putting on a brave front even though his slightly sweaty palms betrayed the façade. Dee’s face went pale as his eyes took in the view of a raised platform, obviously built in haste, as several of the boards supporting the structure were not nailed and some of wood used looked weather-beaten.
Seated upon the platform was a thick-looking chair that the closer that Dee ventured towards it, looked to be made of assorted human bones, some of which still looked grisly and fresh. Reminding himself that looking sickly would not help his situation at all, the man reined in as much of his discomfort as he could before placing his gaze on the figure seated in that abominable piece of furniture.
The woman looked tall, but after taking stock of her legs, Dee decided she was about five foot five, not at all the stature which he had anticipated from someone within her position in the werkers’ society. The clothing she wore was surprisingly simple; a long-sleeved gray shirt with a deep V-neck that brought attention to the large metal cross, the black cord of which circled her thin neck twice, that was cradled between her breasts; the lower half of her body was covered in a pair of long tan slacks, that she quickly readjusted as she stood from the chair.
Deep violent eyes blinked, and then looked on in amusement, before a pale hand flicked a piece of long black hair over a shoulder, and then the woman that was Ilona Summers spoke, her voice somewhere between husky and rough. “Welcome to our humble adobe, Mr. Laytner. I hope you have found it to your liking, as you will be here until we have no further use for you; I hope you do understand that if, during any of the situations that may arise, you work for us, and only us.”
Not fond of the slight teasing inflicted within her tone, Dee merely nodded, fighting to keep his expression neutral, and not on the angered side as he would have liked it to be. Feeling a long fingernail tease the flesh of his neck unexpectedly, the raven-haired man looked up to meet the ever-amused gaze of Ilona’s, whose mouth curved into a wide smile, before she looked about the room, and spoke harshly. “I wish to speak to our independent alone. Leave us be for a few hours before coming to collect him from my private chambers, am I understood?”
The crowd of werkers that had slowly gathered broke apart, figures going back to where they had come, and others lingering a moment before doing the same; only one male werker remained, fixing their leader with a questioning stare. Flinching as the fingernail on the side of his bared throat drew blood, withdrawn hastily by its owner as it was, Dee looked onto the retreating form of Ilona as she drew close to the lone werker, and glared openly, none too pleased it seemed with having her order disobeyed.
Nervously, the short blonde haired werker cleared his throat, light green eyes narrowing determinedly as he spoke hurriedly, the tone slightly wavering despite proper preparation. “Do you think it wise to let the man know the locations of your chambers, Ilona? What if he makes good his escape from here, and inadvertently provides the Resistance with information they have yet to grasp hold of themselves?”
There was a loaded moment, before a sharply clawed hand moved swiftly, too fast for Dee’s eyes to track, struck the side of the subordinate werker’s face, and the masculine voice that had been spoke out worriedly shifted into short screams of agony. The reason why the werker seemed to be in so much pain was unknown, until the bloody hand of Ilona’s opened, and the eyeball that had been previously positioned in the man’s right eye socket, rolled to the ground, the green colored pupil sharp in contrast to the brown dirt it laid upon.
“You’d do well to curb your tongue, Zeke Kellem, for I will not be so forgiving the next time you tell me information I am already well aware of. Now, take that which belongs to you, and see if the few medical personnel we have here can be of any help to you,” Ilona said evenly, unfazed to the violence she had just wrought unto her subordinate, and after Zeke had shakily slinked away into the darkness beyond them, the woman reached out and grasped Dee’s wrist.
His breath coming in erratically, the raven-haired man fought to not pull away from Ilona’s bloodied hand, but in the end, failed to do so, as he fell to his knees, and emptied what little had been in his stomach. While Dee knew that the werkers’ headquarters was bound to be different from the Resistance’s, he had not thought the comparisons and contrasts would make themselves evident so strongly.
”And the Resistance says we have filthy habits; at least we werkers know how to keep a meal inside us where it belongs,” Ilona commented shortly, before taking hold of Dee’s shoulder impatiently and leading him onward through the darkness that he could not navigate through himself, even if he had made an effort. “I do hope you will not be a disappointment, Mr. Laytner, because I do so hate wastes of my precious time.”
As he was shoved roughly through a heavy crimson curtain, Ilona motioned to the small card table ladened with various foods and drink, not knowing that Dee considered the sight quite unwelcome to his suddenly unstable stomach. Catching sight of a pitcher of ice water, Dee wandered over to the table, and poured himself a glass of the chilly liquid, quickly swallowing it as he looked over the room that was said to be Ilona’s private chambers.
The walls were painted a rich burgundy, with some paintings hanging from various spots; one painting in particular was placed above the king-sized bed, displaying a scene in the forest, one of impending violence as the wolf in the painting looked about to attack a man with a notched bow and arrow looking about the darkness surrounding him determinedly.
“Before meeting with the werker that forever changed my life, I thought wolves to be terribly romantic and beautiful in their own deadly way. Little did I know I would have the opportunity to gain an insider’s perspective into the creatures’ minds. But here I am, forty-four years later, looking nowhere near my respective age. Tell me, Mr. Laytner…or can I call you Dee?”
Coughing once to clear his throat, Dee took another sip of water before telling Ilona he did mind the use of his first name, though that mouth addressing him so familiarly did nothing to ease his troubled mind. “If your body did have a care to what your mind wished, would you veer from humanity, or stand fast to it?”
Notching the werker’s leader with a curious stare, Dee refrained from speaking until he was certain his words would not carry what disgust his thoughts did. Gently, he raised a wetted napkin he had taken hold from the table, and held it on the long scratch on the side of his throat, before telling what he had believed true. “If I may speak so honestly, I would rather not shift into something nature did not wrought into existence. Though, if my body decides to succumb to the seed of lycanthropy that rests inside of it, I will not have much a choice in the matter.”
Ilona’s silence was a disconcerting thing, and as she slipped off the bottom of the ruby silk-encased bed, the look in her violet eyes seemed more troubling than her soundlessness; Dee leaned back against the chair he sat in, futilely trying to put some distance between the werker leader and himself.
“So you would find it distasteful to have your body do things it was not meant to?” Ilona questioned, her hands coming to rest on top of Dee’s knees, and gently pulling the two limbs apart until the woman sat between his legs gracefully, one of her arms sliding along Dee’s back, while the other arm lay on the length of his leg, the fingers connected to the arm playing against the jut of his left hip bone. “But what if those changes made it possible to do wondrous things, activities that humans dare not dream of?”
Half shuddering in repulsion and pure lust, Dee shoved Ilona away, or tried to, but once again, the werker’s strength was too much for him to overcome, and after a moment, the small woman moved from between his legs to straddle his hips, her mouth pressing harshly against his own, the teeth that gently gazed one side of his mouth promising violence if he resisted her actions. Whimpering just the slightly bit as he battled between obeying his slowly awakening libido and his panicked mind, Dee found his hands moving towards the bottom of Ilona’s shirt.
Eager pale fingers shifted from the raven-haired man’s shoulders to his lower torso, undoing the three buttons of the jeans easily, before lightly caressing the material blocking that which Ilona wanted to put to action very soon in the near future. Breaking apart from the woman’s mouth, for both the need to breathe, and to reevaluate just what was taking place, Dee swallowed the breathy moan that would have come from his mouth, and using strength which he didn’t think possible of himself, shoved Ilona to the floor.
Angrily, the werker leader gathered herself up, glaring up at Dee vindictively as the hands crossed against her chest began to shift, changing into claws the raven-haired man was all too familiar with. “I do not discriminate between races, just as you do not discriminate between sexes. Yet you dare to push me away, when I offer you the chance to grasp a bit of physical happiness.”
Aware of the sudden danger he found himself in, Dee held up both hands in a sign of surrender before Ilona’s claws could be put to good use, and as if satisfied with the man’s actions, the shifting reversed, the hands the woman was born with reappearing swiftly.
“How did you know I was bi?” He asked, a bit dumbfounded the werker could have picked up something of such importance. Usually, no one caught onto the fact until he hit on him or her, or at the very least when him or her hit on him, which rarely occurred anyway.
“Your eyes betray you, Dee, very much so, they wandered over both sexes so thoroughly; you would think you were trying to memorize each one of their features. Were you?” Ilona’s approach was slow, measuring the effect she had on their new independent before she kneeled before him, reaching out a hand to trace the wounds the werker in Central Park had laid upon Dee so many days ago.
The pale face that had been full of anger but a moment ago seemed oddly melancholy as the werker continued to trace the lines until finally pulling back after a brief spasm possessed her. “As the werker leader, it is not only my job to protect those who join this pack, but also to acknowledge each of them, retain a bit of their life force so that when they meet their unfortunate end at the hands of the Resistance or otherwise, I will know of their deaths. We’re all connected, I most closely of all.
“The werker who did this; his name was William Cummingham, and he was the father of a family; four human children and one human wife. Lycanthropy cannot be passed on genetically, not unless the wolf within has been present for some time (usually a century or more), and is a part of us, as we are to it. William did nothing but live as he could, even if it meant taking the lives of others during the full moon. The Resistance calls us monsters, creatures that have not the right of drawing breath, but do you want to know the truth?”
Ilona’s eyes had darkened significantly, and Dee found he could not look away from those oddly reflective surfaces, staring only in mute curiosity as the werker leader began to speak, her tone inflicted with unfiltered hatred. “It is not us that are the monsters; it is the human beings that dare call themselves an organization, those that inhabit the Resistance and mindlessly murder those of our kind without a thread of regret. We have the right to live just as anyone else does, but are not given the chance, the opportunity to say what we wish to since we are stuck down at first sight. We’re not given justice, and we are in sore need of it.”
Looking away from the now watery pools of the woman’s eyes, Dee thought back to that fateful evening in the park, that upon first coming upon the werker, it had not attacked him until the Resistance had made it’s appearance. Did I truly give the creature a chance to state it’s case before it was forced to take action, to prolong it’s life however many seconds it took before being taken down by Ryo’s organization?
An answer did not seem forthcoming, even as Dee strained his mind to look for one, any one, and as he looked back on the somewhat crumbling figure of Ilona, he started, the woman’s curled form reminding him of someone else. Though Ryo and the werker leader differed greatly, they both seemed to possess a large emotional wound that had yet to be healed, and Dee spoke haltingly, unsure if his observations were correct.
“May I assume that one of the werkers the Resistance killed was related to you in some way? There usually is some cause behind someone’s actions, and you look particularly wounded, as if part of you had been ripped out savagely. Perhaps if you and Ryo could meet, and discuss just what it is you two are fighting for, you may find some common ground, some kind of compromise that would stop all the unjustified killing.”
Ilona’s still figure sprung into action, her fist colliding with Dee’s jaw before he could adequately avoid the punch, and as he sat up and rubbed the struck spot irritated, the woman roared, her words barely perceivable to the human ear.
“I have no wish to speak with that bastard! He mercilessly murders our kind, and relishes in it, the killing, the blood, everything! He brings others into his cause only to justify his own actions, and I cannot abide that! He killed my husband only two years ago, and still he is not punished, he is not hurt severe enough for my revenge to be complete! Talk to him, you say?! I would rather silt his throat, and I doubt he feels any different! Talking is impossible for two, whose worlds are so different!”
Stunned by the werker leader’s outburst, Dee could only do little more than observe her as the tears of sadness she had shed earlier were replaced by those of burning hot rage, invisible streaks of glass that were visible only to those that were close by. Feeling as if he had offended her, Dee reached out, intent on offering some sort of comfort, but when Ilona slapped the hand away harshly, he instead headed to the door, pausing only when the woman spoke, her tone wavering before becoming steady once again.
“We have an outing, a hunt that I wish you to attend, but do not worry, you will not need to participate, only observe. If we happen to run into one of the Resistance members, I expect you to serve a way of communication for us since they will not listen to any but their own kind. I am determined to stop the bloodshed, but not before I have my revenge on Randy McLane, understood?”
Nodding to himself, then realizing Ilona could not see the action, he replied, hastily, eager to get to his room, and process all of the information he had learned in the last hour. “Yes, I understand all too well. Both you werkers and the Resistance are willing to walk over a few corpses to get your goals accomplished. In my opinion, both the werkers and the Resistance are monsters, not just one side. Am I wrong?”
Even as a pair of werkers suddenly appeared on the other side of the heavy red certain as if summoned by magic, before he was roughly escorted towards the dark hallway, Dee heard but one word, hissed roughly through gritted teeth ground together in anger.
“Yes.”
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As Diana made her way across the hospital room, she tried to put all worries aside about the earlier occurrence that had happened in this room, as tempers had run rampant, and emotions flared to life quite quickly. Gently, she placed the glass of water in her fiancé’s hand, and gritted her teeth at the pain the action of sitting up and bringing the glass to his mouth caused Berkeley. The slicing of his femoral vein had left the man as weak as a newborn kitten, and though his strength was slowly returning, it was be a while before Berkeley could walk unaided.
But it could have been much worse, Diana decided quietly in the privacy of her mind, for if this had been the first time her fiancé had been wounded by a werker, he could have turned into one of the creatures themselves, though fortunately, after various injuries and scratches, his body obviously was immune to lycanthropy. Until this fact had been discovered, the blonde woman had been terrified each and every time Berkeley had gone off on some sort of mission (even when she had accompanied him at times).
Part of the woman both hated and loved Randy’s cause, as the amount of suffering the humans endured by the werkers had been lowered significantly except with each nest, there was a chance none of the Resistance members would come out alive, anymore than the werkers they attacked. It was a dangerous poker game with Fate, and each time a reconnaissance commenced, Diana had feared that perhaps the Resistance would be dealt the losing hand whilst the werkers gained the winning.
Both her and Berkeley would not have to deal with such things anymore, as their resignations from the Resistance had been accepted, and honored, though grudgingly if Randy’s foul mood during their discussion hours ago had been any indication. Though the scarred man’s anger had been justified, what with the topic her fiancé had brought up and would not drop until getting a straight answer the Resistance leader was quite reluctant to give.
Just as Diana was about to thread upon another line of thought, the feel of a hand on her left one that rested uneasily on her lap drew her back to the present, and she met the concerned gaze of Berkeley, who intertwined their fingers and smiled lightly. Her heart skipped a beat, ever in awe of just how strong the man lying in the bed next to her was, and how Berkeley had always been someone who she had admired greatly even before falling in love with him.
“If you worry yourself to death about it, I retract my offer of marriage, and recommend instead that you wed the room of a sanitarium, because I am aware of how you let things get to you, and it’s not something a sane woman does willingly,” He said softly, his roughened voice a pale shadow of the smooth baritone Diana was so used to hearing.
Heeding her fiancé’s advice, the blonde woman merely nodded, bringing both hands to grasp Berkeley’s single one, before speaking, her tone uncertain and somewhat wavering. “Was it really necessary to bring that up, Berk? Everyone in the Resistance is aware of it, but it’s taboo to discuss it openly, especially with Randy himself present. I cannot believe you kept pushing until…”
A short snort was all Diana got in respond, and she looked curiously at Berkeley whose face was bordering on the amused side, before the man pulled his hand away from the former Resistance member’s, and scratched an itch that had obviously been bothering him. “Whether or not everyone holds knowledge of it doesn’t mean that Randy himself is aware of it. I thought it best to bring it up before someone else did, someone who has not known him as long as we have.”
“But still…he looked truly angry, and worst of all, offended when the discussion turned that way. Do you think just because we have quit the Resistance, he won’t associate with us anymore? I don’t think I could bear it if he turned a blind eye to our existence.” The worries Diana had pushed aside when Berkeley had began speaking to her came to the forefront once again, this time, showing many new situations, and their problems.
Berkeley sat up once again, biting his bottom lip in an effort to prevent any sound from escaping his mouth during the motion, before reaching out, and pulling Diana against his chest. The blonde woman clutched at him, burying her face into his shoulder, and trying to summon the strength she seemed to have lost ever since hearing of her fiancé’s injuries. When a hand threaded through her hair, Diana fought for words, but was unable to find the right ones to describe how she felt at the moment, though Berkeley was fast to find them instead.
“I said what needed to be said; nothing more, nothing less. That’s all there to it.”
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It was only when Dee had smoked his way through two packs of cigarettes that he paused in his smoking, refusing to flick away the white stick he had but lit a moment ago, and leaned more heavily against the wall behind his back, closing his eyes as if to close his mind from the chaos it had recently experienced. Chain-smoking would not help his situation in the least, and if Dee continued the task he was currently undertaking, his supply of the slim cylinders would dwindle down significantly.
Unconsciously, the raven-haired man slipped his free hand through one of the openings in his button-down shirt, and ran his fingers over the three long claw marks that marred his upper chest and part of his shoulder. Instead of the abrasive surface he had expected to encounter, Dee started when his exploration revealed smooth and slightly jagged lines, the wounds healing much faster than he had anticipated. In fact, if the stunned man thought about it long enough, the pain that had come with breathing these last few days had stopped altogether when he hadn’t even been aware of it.
More than a little stressed at his discovery, Dee quickly ran a hand down the line of buttons, and discarded the shirt (and the cigarette, which he ground against the wall as he was getting up) to the bed he had been perched upon, before heading to the small bathroom but a few feet away. Sure enough, the redness of the marks had faded, and only a vague outline gave an idea that he had been injured at all. Well aware his breath was running short, and his eyes were nearly the size of saucers, Dee leaned over the bathroom counter, and forced himself to take long steady breaths.
When his heart was not pounding so fiercely in his chest, the raven-haired man looked up, his emerald eyes looking more pronounced than usual, as the bright green color had darkened slightly. Telling himself that the speed of which his wounds had healed was nothing to worry about, that it could been anything that had prompted the process and not lycanthropy as his mind kept providing unhelpfully, Dee wondered if he was in denial, or it was really something which he shouldn’t bother over.
Both options did not lead him to a solution, and with a quiet groan of frustration, the man returned to his task of chain-smoking; hoping the amount of nicotine might lend him an answer he couldn’t find himself.
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Slipping from the bed quietly, Randy crept across the length of the bedroom floor easily, putting on a pair of boxers and jeans plucked hastily from his opened dresser drawers, before closing the door softly. The Resistance leader entered the kitchen, his hands automatically reaching for a mug from the cabinets situated along the upper wall. Jerking an instant coffee pocket from the small pantry, Randy quickly heated the water he had filled the mug with, and mixed the two items together, the smell itself lending him some measure of comfort.
When his parents had been alive and well, his mother had always favored coffee as her beverage of choice, even when his father had expressed a distaste to both the smell and taste of the liquid, she had still drank the stuff regularly. Now, it served as a reminder of days long since past, and though Randy would not usually drink coffee, he allowed himself to enjoy the hot liquid as much as he could, the remnants of the worries in the back of his mind dissipated, finally leaving the man in peace.
Though he had not been expecting Leo to stay as long as he had, and certainly not spending most of that time within the covers of his bed, Randy found he couldn’t summon any negative feeling for the older man, and allowed a small amount of appreciation bury itself in his now tensionless body. As a method of distraction, Leo had worked wonders, and it was with a light smile that the Resistance leader lowered the volume of his answering machine, and checked his messages.
As the slightly annoyed tone of J.J. filled the air, Randy scoffed, raising a hand to skip ahead to his other messages, since he considered J.J.’s words unimportant, as they did not tell him of anything he didn’t already know. When Diana’s unhurried words spoke, the Japanese-American paused, listening carefully:
“I know you didn’t want to hear from me so soon, but since my message from Drake didn’t prompt you to pay a visit to the hospital, or pick up a phone, I thought I might give you a call. I just wanted you to be aware that I am sorry, about our discussion in Berk’s hospital room, and…everything else. If everything were different, none of this would have happened. I…oh, dammit.”
At the abrupt end of the message, Randy regarded the phone silently as it announced there were no more messages to play, and beeped once loudly, a shrill thing that made his head ache for a brief heartbeat. The clear concern and frustration that had laced the words throughout Diana’s message worried the Resistance leader, as Berkeley’s fiancée usually kept her emotions in check, and held the significance of her words in high regard. Shaking his head confusedly, Randy took another sip of his coffee, and pondered why he had heard no news of Dee’s reappearance.
Usually, when something of this kind occurred, the escaped werker victim could either be found dead (killed by the Resistance or something else entirely), or the person would be located within a few hours; it was highly unlikely that Dee could have managed to find a secure residence so swiftly, which led Randy to believe that perhaps the wounded man had managed to get hold of someone who had connections, or something of the like, since nary a Resistance member had yet to report with any information, and the members of his organization were usually very reliable in these matters.
Displeased with the current circumstances, the Resistance leader drained the rest of his coffee in one gulp, and after placing the mug into the kitchen sink, returned to the bedroom where he looked onto the slumbering figure of Leo before frowning, and jerking the pillow upon which the older man rested his head, away viciously.
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The man who served as a convenient target for venting Randy’s anger, started, dark gray eyes going wide when he realized just who had disturbed him, and how pissed off the scarred man in question seemed. Glad he was too intelligent for his own good, Leo swallowed the curses that would have poured forth from his mouth, and smiled nervously at the Japanese-American’s still figure, who after a moment moved about the bedroom, picking up Leo’s clothes, and then tossing them to whom they rightfully belonged a bit roughly.
Catching the small pile of clothes easily, the older man stood up, paying no heed to his nude state, or the suddenly intense gaze of Randy’s on him, as he pulled on the slightly rumpled suit and started for the door, only to be pulled back by a pale hand on his arm. Stunned by the quick kiss Randy gave him, the meeting of mouths both a intense and sweet experience, Leo was only further amazed at the pleasant expression on the Resistance leader’s face as he finished the action; the gray-eyed man could only stare in wonder at unexpected display of affection.
Before the older man could speak however, Randy pressed against his back, guiding him to the apartment door and opening it; Leo, knowing when to take a hint, merely nodded and was about to close the door himself, when the younger man spoke. “I’m usually too preoccupied with other matters to say this, so…thank you, for helping me to forget myself, even just for while. It was very much appreciated.”
Allowing a smirk to overcome his mouth, Leo leaned forward, clutching the length of Randy’s jaw lightly in his hand, and met the unusually interested gaze of his somewhat lover. “Believe me, Randy, it was my pleasure.”
As the pale man pulled away, and began to let the door close, Leo muttered to himself, pleased beyond words that his actions had helped to make the load of some stress and worries lift considerably. “My pleasure, indeed.”
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After nodding his thanks to the vendor on the corner of the street once more, Drake Parker wandered back over to the small group of Resistance members he had joined a few hours ago, and after everyone was accounted for, so the man didn’t have to remind himself, Drake told what he had found out, which in truth wasn’t much at all. It was a small shred of a scattered puzzle no one had yet figured out how to piece together.
“Vendor over there tells me that someone matching Dee’s description went by at about four ‘o clock in the afternoon, following a kid of about thirteen years of age, but that’s all he remembers of the kid, since he only glanced over once, and didn’t pay it much mind.”
After glancing about the group, and seeing not many take interest, he asked what they had found out, and one of the new Resistance members that had joined but two weeks ago, a woman of six feet in height, burly enough that she held her own among the other gathered men, with dark blue eyes and cropped red hair, spoke, Natasha Johnston’s voice a tiny squeaky thing compared to other women’s voices. “One of the homeless on the bench around here told me a strange thing, a very strange thing, in fact, I thought he was drunk at first but after thinking it over, I think he was telling the truth.
“He spoke of an alleyway, that several people had disappeared through, and never come out, as if the darkness had swallowed them up, like they were some delicious morsel. Perhaps if we survey the area, we’ll find some kind of trapdoor, or opening of some kind? It’s worth a shot compared to the other information we’ve managed to gather.”
Drake thought the matter over before reluctantly agreeing with Natasha’s suggestion, and after he had sent them to search their chosen sections, shook his head, dissatisfied with how this manhunt was going. One man could not vanish such as Dee had, not unless he had some connections or at the very least some powerful friend that could afford to go to lengths to conceal him. About to go search as well, one of the Resistance member’s voices yelled loudly, catching his attention within a second.
“Drake! I think we’ve hit the jackpot!” Quickly going over to where Jackson was located, Drake was soon looking over the man’s shoulder, at a single silt of light that reflected on them, and the brick wall behind them. Narrowing his eyes confusedly, the man waved away Jackson, and put a hand out, expecting to feel the rough surface of brick and falling just short of it, as his fingers rubbed against a clearly smooth surface.
Frowning now, he continued his inspection, coming to the conclusion the surface against his hand was clearly wooden, and after his hand caught on a knob, Drake grinned, his expression on the edge of triumphant as he pulled the door open.
The brick wall image shimmered before disappearing, as Drake fully opened the door to its limit, and gazed down a set of stairs that led to yet another doorway that lingered on the end of the last step. As one of the men stepped forward, the fast becoming-experienced member of the Resistance shook his head, swiftly closing the door, and allowing the illusion that concealed the door to fall back upon it.
“We don’t yet know if this passageway leads to Dee or not, so let’s regroup with everyone else, and then let Randy know what we’ve found. Just remember what street and which alleyway the opening is in,” Drake said, his tone clipped and full of authority, as the group he had been assigned with followed in his wake. “I have a feeling someone is going to be very contented if indeed that passageway leads to Dee, very contented indeed.”
To Be Continued…
Onto Chapter Seven?
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