Death Rites

3 - The part where Leonara shows up

Prince and Lexa made their way to the door that usually led to their quarters, and that now led to their improvised bear trap. Prince opened it slowly, very slowly, and peered around the edge. He nodded at Lexa and they opened the door further. Teague found herself not wanting to look. She had never seen a spirit before, not any kind, not even the rabbit kind that was supposed to be routine for Prince and lexa. She'd heard stories. And really, she thought she could feel a sense of tangible dread oozing out of the crack in the door; maybe even some heat and the smell of sickly sweet flowers, like the death flowers from the jungles of Amaranth. Lexa slipped inside, and she could hear her moving some things around the room. Putting things upright. The sound of candles being lit. 

Prince opened the door and Teague couldn't see a thing - apart from one candle, it was dark. Even up here, the fences had their windows boarded up because of the curfew. She wondered why they hadn't left a lamp or a candle on to begin with; let alone the big fireplace that they had. Lexa lit three more candles that had been placed on various places on the floor around the master bed, then put the fourth down in its original place at the last corner. She still couldn't seen anything inside the circle of light. There was a dark spot - not a dark spot but a blind spot in her vision. It was definitely light, she just couldn't -see- anything there. A spot of empty grey, likke she'd rubbed in her eyes too hard. Lexa came back out to convene with her boyfriend. 

"It shut off all the lights," she whispered, "but the sigil appears intact. The entity is still there. But if it can fuck with the candles, which were definitely outside of the sigil, then it's only still in there because it wants to be. It could get out if it wanted to." 

Prince nodded. "We need to be fast then." 

He took Teague by the shoulders and pushed her into the room, moved her into position by the foot of the bed. The smell of rotting, poisonous jungle flowers was nearly overwhelming and the heat beat in her face like she was inches from an open fire. Almost involuntarily - but really, she really really wanted to do it - she turned around as soon as Prince released her shoulders and walked to the door. Calmly, purposefully, until Prince took her shoulder again and moved her calmly and purposefully back to her spot, holding her there this time. 

For the debt. Right. No more shit jobs. No more wetwork. No more horrible clients. Just stay still and let them do magic on you. Again. 

Prince's hands on her shoulders felt in no way comforting. He had a way about him, if he walked in a room people calmed down. Not this time though. 

Lexa was drawing something on the floor around her feet. Teague wasn't sure what she was actually drawing with. She was dipping an inkpen in a bowl of liquid, but she couldn't tell what the liquid was. Or what she was drawing. Or was she writing? Her head was spinning and the smell was starting to get the better of her. She didn't want this. She could tell they were already doing magic on her and she could do nothign about it. 

Lexa closed up one of the concentric circles she was working on. The circles contained squigglies. It was intersected by other circles with squiggles. 

As soon as Lexa closed up the circle the room brightened. She could see all the light from th candles now, and it was alright. Some of the panick ebbed. The smell seemed to go away a little. She took a deep breath and looked back at Prince and Lexa. She couldn't see them anymore, just like she hadn't been able to see what was on the bed before. She no longer felt Prince's hand on her shoulder. 

She heard a noise from the bed and turned around slowly. 

There was a girl on the bed. She was naked, crouched over by the headboard, sinking into all of the pillows. For a moment Teague thought Prince had done something horrible. She shook her head. It was an entity, not a girl. This was probably some kind of magic already.