7 - What Lies Beneath Havenwood

     Eva had to run home to do something for her dad, leaving me to take care of the information we learned at Silas’ home in the coach house. Much to my surprise, I found the rest of my siblings hanging out on the porch of our home, including Armani and Avena. Guess they decided to visit for a couple of days.

     ““There he is,”” Armani and Avena said in tandem. It was always creepy when they did that. They were infinitely better at it than most others. ““So, how’s Eva? Are you two dating yet?””

     “She’s doing good, we were chilling at the coach house.” I answered, brushing off the second question. The twins both frowned slightly, as if they were disappointed I didn’t rise to the obvious bait. What can I say, I had more pressing problems on my mind. “We also found something there that is a bit concerning.”

     I showed them the booklet. As they read the title “Mom’s clients”, Avan immediately asked, “Ooh, ooh, lemme guess: Nova Stone?”

     He grinned as I nodded. “Karking knew it,” Avan pumped his fist in satisfaction. He was among the few that postulated Nova had continued her illicit activities after her marriage to Alex. Vindication was a heck of an ego boost. “No way a woman like that wasn’t getting paid to boink.”

     “It’s times like these I’m glad we’re not like that,” Alan said with mocking derision. He normally wasn’t like this. “Human nature, the best and worst thing I’ve ever seen growing up. The rest of my siblings agreed with his condemnation with various levels of assent.

     “Ada,” I asked once everyone else had finished talking. “Would you be willing to take this to my room? I still have to figure out what to do with this.”

     My sister looked at the client book with a degree of apprehension, but nodded, taking it. Perhaps she understood what I had gone through. Or maybe holding someone’s sex list just made her uncomfortable.

     “Why do you think you’ll do?”

     “I don’t know,” I confessed. “This is a tricky situation, and could hurt a lot of people. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d be happier knowing if I was married, that my partner hadn’t been seeing a prostitute behind my back. I still need to think about it though.”

     Avan nearly choked on his drink as what I said made him laugh. “Yeah, as if your pillows would ever cheat on you.” He jeered. None of the others joined in his joke. We all stared, and he shrunk in embarrassment before muttering an apology.

     “Did you tell the others about our talk?” I murmured over to Alan.

     Alan grinned but didn’t confirm or deny my question, only winking in response.

     “How was Sera?” He asked instead. “I’ve heard she’s gotten flirtier since Silas got distant. Find out what might be in the caves below town, or –”

     “You knew I had to deal with Sera?” I interrupted, feeling the anger rise up. Almost immediately it turned to shame, after what we had just gone through. “Did you know what I had to go through to get this information?”
     “Hey, we’re only human,” Avan said, coming to the defense of Alan. He was also wildly misinterpreting what had happened. Something I wasn’t about to share just out of nowhere, considering the circumstances “Also, it was probably hilarious.”

     “Yeah, yeah I knew,” Alan admitted easily. “Baddo is preparing me to take over. Of course I know almost everyone who works for us. I’m friends with most of them too. There were only three others who work for MMM that are planning to go into biology though, so it was a quarter chance at the very least you would have to deal with her.” His eyes gleamed as a wicked smile crossed his face. “But since I knew you wanted to find out what was in that hole as soon as possible, I made sure all the others weren’t scheduled this entire week, making the odds you had to speak with Seraphina nearly a sure thing.”

     “So you deliberately tortured me?”

     “You say that like an older brother isn’t allowed to torment their siblings.”

     “No wonder Baddo wants you to take over Manifest,” Ada said with genuine admiration.

     ““Diabolical.”” Avena and Armani agreed.

     Alan accepted the praise without a hint of embarrassment or pride. “Now that that’s out of the way,” he replied, allowing an edge to enter his voice. “What did Sera have to say?”

     Almost immediately the tone shifted from somewhat light hearted to somber.

     “Sera said it's unlikely we saw something that’s supposed to be there,” I answered. The smallest trickle of anxiety dripped into my mind as I gave my report. The idea of returning to the cave was mildly distressing even to contemplate. “Most of the wildlife that fits the description we gave her got scared off when Mythril Mine Manifest moved in, and have kept their distance from Havenwood. And just like you said, there haven’t been any recorded animals that live in caves in the region, and of the ones we know of none exist that can establish a psychic connection with its prey.

     “So her hypothesis is that we might have found some kind of Archon or even Leviathan-class creature.”

     “Leviathan-class?” Avan repeated, incredulous. “I know the town is a coastal one, but I thought those things were purely ocean based. What’s one doing in the caves beneath Havenwood?”

     ““The classification was named after the Vathlassa,”” Armani and Avena answered. ““That doesn’t mean all Leviathan-class creatures are the same size. They just have the same potential danger as one.””

     “Oh… yay. And you want to pass this information onto Edgar before he investigates it?”

     “Dad’s already gone,” A voice interrupted before I could say anything.

     The rest of us turned, and discovered Eva had joined us. She was out of breath, apparently having just sprinted from her home to ours. My siblings all shuffled uncomfortably, and I immediately realized that they were wondering how much of their conversation she had overheard prior. Oddly enough, only Avena and Armani seemed undisturbed by the intrusion. Meanwhile I was dreading about the fact we were about to return to the one place I didn’t want to come back to.
     “I think he’s gone down into the cave.” She continued.

     The seven of us all journeyed towards the hole, and just as Eva had feared, the hole was breached. There were a couple spare harnesses, several anchor points, tethers and rope attached to some nearby trees that were pressed tightly against the hole’s perimeter, as well an assortment of supplies, weapons, both bladed and gunpowder, and snacks that were scattered around the area. Avan immediately homed in on one of the wrapped candies, tearing into it like he hadn’t eaten all day.

     “At least it looks like he didn’t go alone,” Armani said optimistically, inspecting the rig.

     “And brought some decent firepower as well,” Avena added approvingly.

     “He has to, dad doesn’t know magyk like the rest of us does,” Eva explained.

     I had forgotten that. Not everyone can use magyk, and as happy as it made Edgar that his little girl could use it, Eva had always feared for her dad despite a career spent in the King’s service.

     The twins immediately began to harness each other up, prompting Eva’s comment about them to float back into the forefront of my mind. Think they’re karcking each other? I pushed it aside, disgusted, but glancing over I saw Eva smirking at Armani and Avena, and I knew the same thought was running through her head as well.

     “Something you wanna see down there?” Alan asked calmly, almost like Baddo would when he caught us doing something we weren’t meant to be doing.

     Armani and Avena grinned. “We just don’t want a repeat–” Armani began.

     “– of the cave in at MMM, so let's say we’re going as–” Avena continued.

     ““–insurance.”” They said in unison. After a beat, they glanced over at Eva and I. ““Wanna come?””

     “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Ada chimed in nervously. She kept her distance as Eva and I began to put harnesses on and Avan spat down the hole just as Alan did the day we sealed it. “Like you said, there could be who knows what down there.”

     “All the more reason to help,” I replied. As much as I hated the idea of going down there, some magical reinforcements would help Eva’s dad and the team immensely. “Anyone else wanna come?”

     “I’ll run evac if things go south,” Alan volunteered as Avan began offering excuses to not go down.

     “And I can run interference if anyone shows up,” Ada told us. “Just, don’t die, okay? Baddo is gonna flip when he finds out.”

     Avena and Armani already started repelling down into the hole as Eva and I began inspecting our harnesses. “No, seriously.” Ada added. “Losing Madda was hard enough, Adan. I don’t know what Baddo will do if he loses anyone else.”

     She hardly ever mentioned Madda unless things were serious. It was probably meant to be encouraging, but if anything, it only made me more anxious.

     Hopefully that wasn’t as obvious though. I nodded back as Eva began to rappel down. “I won’t.” I replied. Taking a moment to gather my courage, I wiped the sweat that beaded my brow.

     And descended again down into the hole.

     Armani and Eva had fire floating from their fingertips as I joined them at the cave floor. Meanwhile, Avena seemed to glow outward as she began projecting electricity underneath her skin.

     “Pretty cool, huh?” She asked as Eva admired her. “But check this,” Avena grinned and with a quick motion, suddenly her skin stopped glowing, and a beam of lights began projecting out of her eyes draping the cave walls with illumination. Eva and I voiced our astonishment as Armani chuckled. “It tickles my head when I do this. Learned how to do it just a few weeks ago.”

     Being back in the cave didn’t do any favors to my nerves. Before, it had been a wonderful adventure of discovery and curiosity, before the fear fell upon us as we found the egg. Now, we had returned, where the beast could be lurking behind any of the corners or within any of the shadows.

     And we didn’t even have the most solid idea of what we were up against. What was I thinking, coming back down here!

     When I failed to direct us on where to go, my sister Avena took the lead, the rest of us automatically following behind. Eva crept closer to me. “Do you have a plan?” She whispered.

     “Yeah, find Edgar and kill whatever else is down here, if we have too,” Armani cut in. “Wow, this tunnel sure is getting cold.” I was glad he did say something. I wasn’t sure if I could trust myself to speak.

     Were the others as frightened as I was? Or were they just better at hiding it?

     “It’s so straight and unnatural!” Avena exclaimed in agreement.

     Eva glanced over to me, and I only managed to nod in solidarity with my twin siblings. As the dreaded and expected temperature began to decrease, the two of us ended up practically glommed onto each other as it felt even colder than our first trip through.

     “So, Armani, Avena,” Eva said after a moment of silence. “You guys are always traveling, right?”

     ““Yeah,”” my siblings replied back. ““What’s up?””

     “I was wondering what you two do.” she continued. “I haven’t heard a lot from Adan, and I was thinking you guys would have to need money to always be on the go.”

     The twins started laughing. “We mooch off Baddo,” Armani answered. “It pays to have a dad as the administrator of a mine.”

     “Yeah, we’re freeloaders,” Avena confessed jovially. “But we also do some consultations on the side. We travel so much we can recommend the best places for tourists to visit, when to go, when to stay away, what to look out for, that sort of thing. So maybe not so much a freeloader as we are freelancers I guess.”

     “That makes sense,” Eva said, still perplexed. It was obvious their answer did nothing to resolve her curiosity.

     “We can also hold our own pretty well in a fight!” Armani added, mistaking the confusion on Eva’s face for the task at hand instead for the conversation. But it was comforting that they apparently weren’t allowing the place to get to them. “Had to. After the company cave in, some of the miners got real disoriented. Thought we were whackos. We might have given a few of them concussions on top of the concussions they already had from the collapse.”

     As he was talking, the atmosphere in the tunnel began to change. The temperature began to decrease as more mold and lichen began to sprout. It must have concerned Avena, who started to emit light from her entire body again in conjunction with her eye lights. Lightning magyk was weird. But so was Avena and Armani, so I guess it was a good match – even though I was pretty sure the eye lights weren't a natural application of lightning.

     Eva shivered, and her skin grew wan. I moved to squeeze her hand reassuringly, only for her eyes to grow wide as she whipped her head behind us, responding to something only she could hear. The rest of us turned in kind, as Eva and Armani upped the intensity of their flames and Avena began emitting a distinct crackling from her body.

     Nothing.

     Why did that feel worse?

     If Avan had joined us, he probably would have made a joke to lighten the mood. Heck, he probably would have been what Eva heard and got us all to turn around and get on edge. But he wasn’t here. “I could have sworn I heard something,” Eva said, almost like she was trying to convince herself as much as the rest of us.

     “Armani, Avena,” I finally managed to say. The twins glanced over at me, concern etched into their faces as I gestured all around us. “Aren’t you scared?”

     They grinned sheepishly. “Oh, of course we are,” my brother replied. “But if we let ourselves show it–”

     “–Who would be able to comfort either of you?” my sister finished.

     Honestly, them being able to talk in tandem wasn’t helping. But their support was encouraging.

     “I’m not picking up any gasses that could cause hallucinations,” Armani added, sniffing the air. I made a face I hoped Eva didn’t notice. Most gasses were odorless!

     Slowly, as if none of us wanted to turn away, the four of us turned back the way we headed. We hadn’t even taken another step when our blood ran cold, freezing us into place.

     Once more against all logic and reason, we were in the chamber that had the organic pod-like sac against the wall. It was cracked open, exposing a viscous and shiny interior, empty of whatever that had been birthed inside it. Strewn around the sac was Edgar and some of the private security that he had brought with him to explore the cavern, unconscious but alive, so wonderfully and perfectly alive.

     And something, someone else was standing over them all.

     Someone that couldn’t be here, shouldn’t be here, but was undeniably and irrevocably here.

     Edgar stood over himself and the security detail, observing them with curious, and hungry eyes. His expression was dark and unknowable, and as Avena’s eye beams fell upon him he looked up from the unconscious bodies before him to peer into our very souls. It looked like Edgar, it had to be Edgar, but it wasn’t him.

     It opened its mouth, and a voice that definitely did not belong to Edgar spoke to us.

     “Please don’t scream.”

     All of us definitely wanted to scream. Definitely myself at the very least. I’d even be willing to bet that Eva wanted to; it was wearing her dad’s face after all. But none of us could. We were all frozen in place, stunned by the paradox before us.

     And then, to our shock and horror, the Edgar standing before us was no longer Edgar. It shrunk, it’s skin rippling like disturbed water, Edgar’s toasty tan skin turned ashy and white, and what clothing he was wearing melted into his form. Tentacles sprouted at its hips, and its frame became more feminine, less stocky. A shiny carapace grew over the face, obscuring haunted familiar eyes behind unfeeling darkness as a woman adorned in scales and horns now stood where Eva’s father previously did.

     The woman let out a sigh of relief as she began to inspect herself. She began tapping the horns jutting out from her cheeks, her collarbones, her ribs, spinning to examine the odd tentacle skirt wrapped around her figure, stopping only once she became satisfied with whatever she was looking for. All the while ignoring us.

     I don’t know why, but she was beautiful in a terrifying way. Maybe that said something about me, but I was too scared to realize it or self reflect at the time, understandably.

     Armani was the first to find his voice. “What are you?” He demanded, sounding a lot more authoritative than I ever thought possible.

     “I wish I knew,” The woman confessed. At least she sounded friendly. “But that doesn’t help you at all, does it?”

     “If only it was that easy,” Armani replied. He raised his hand up like a gun, a small flame sparkling at the tip of his index finger. My brother looked so cool right now. “But you can talk, and are even willing to talk. So talk. What did you–”

     “What did you do to my dad!!” Eva demanded, tears in her eyes and a quiver in her voice. “And why the hell did you look like him a moment ago?”

     The woman flashed a toothy smile and raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Let's call it self defense,” She answered calmly. “I’ve been asleep for probably a couple hundred years and am understandably just as confused and scared as you are.”

     “Let’s start with a name,” Avena replied. She had found her edge and was now mirroring her twin brother’s pose, electricity arcing off her extended finger. I wish I could be as brave and badass as they were being right now. “You have a name, right?”

     “Oh, right, of course I have a name. I should have led with that,” the woman agreed sheepishly. “Before I turned into this, I was called Mara. Most others prefer to call me a monster, though, as you can probably imagine why.”

     Everyone else probably weren’t as conversational as we were. Looked like Edgar wasn’t, but then again, it’s not his job to be. His job is to protect private property and ensure the safe passage of goods to the capital.

     “You two, Eva and Adan, you smell familiar,” Mara continued. “Were you the ones that found me and woke me up?”

     “How do you know our name?” I exclaimed in alarm.

     Mara tapped the part of her head where ears would normally be. “My hearing is a lot better than when I used to be human.” She answered. “Did I mention that before? I wasn’t always like this, you know.

     “I used to be human over a thousand years ago.”