Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Descent ❯ Descent ( Chapter 2 )

Key:
Telepathic Communication.
Emphasis.

-- Descent: Chapter Two --

"Go to bed."

Crawford noted immediately that Schuldich did not ask him to 'come to bed', suggesting that the telepath genuinely wanted him to get some sleep, rather than it being a request for anything further.

"If you prefer those kind of tactics, I'll be waiting in my room, legs spread --"

Crawford tuned him out at that point, concentrating instead on the scrapbook in front of him. The map was crudely drawn, but he refused to think that would be a problem. Many experts who had seen a copy of this had firmly believed that if it were followed it would lead them to the chalice. Therefore, there was a key to it all. Now he had the chance to look at it more closely rather than second-hand from visions, he was relieved to discover that it was indeed of an area near to where they were staying now. Before he was murdered, the Eszet agent had told them that was the case, but Crawford had always been wary when he needed to trust another person's judgement. It was, of course, no surprise that the site was nearby. After all, they were also near the original Rosenkreuz, and Eszet always chose areas of high psychic energy for their bases. However, the mountains were depicted using just a few jagged lines, and the villages were of an equal distance apart, with no effort having been made to place them precisely. He had even matched it against a twelfth century map of the area, found in Jei's study. The trick to it must be to find the precise key, hidden within the map, that would let them readjust the scale to one that would show where the chalice was buried.

He became aware that Schuldich was asking him something.

"Did you hear what I said, Crawford? Whipped cream or peanut butter?"

He looked up, making sure he gave nothing away by his expression. Schuldich apparently chose to pursue his original line of argument.

"There's no way you'll find the answer when you're in this state. Sleep on it."

"I can't. The answer's in here, but I'm just too stupid to be able to see it." He picked and the book and it appeared for a second as if he were about to throw it across the room. Instead, as he knew would happen, Schuldich caught his hand and placed it back on the table.

"So unlike you. If you're serious about staying up all night, try telling me about it. See if we can't get a fresh perspective, hm?"

Crawford gave an exhausted grunt of agreement.

"What do we know about this chalice?"

"I told you everything I know about it. The real question is: 'what happens if you drink from Lucifer's cup?'"

"Sounds like the opening to a bad joke," retorted Schuldich.

Crawford sighed. "I've yet to figure out the punchline. Eszet clearly wants it to replace the ritual that was disrupted."

"Eternal youth? There must be better things for which to sell your soul."

"You would think, wouldn't you?"

"That reminds me. I checked your e-mail for you. The Kritiker information was useless; just duplicated what we knew already. There was some information Nagi included on weapons that work similarly to a microwave, but they're still far off from even putting together a prototype."

"I know."

Schuldich shrugged. "I figured, which was why I didn't rush to tell you. The autopsy results on the Eszet agent were more interesting."

"Internal organs slowly roasted. No other marks on him. I know."

Schuldich scowled at him. "So what do you know about this map?"

"It's inaccurate to say the least. Drawn in the twelfth century by a monk who somehow hid the location in the hope that only the right people would find it."

"Presumably. Or else he was too lazy to use a ruler, hm?"

"They got up at three a.m., recited morning prayers, worked in the fields all day, recited evening prayers, and went to bed in the early hours. Clearly the twelfth century definition of 'lazy' is very different to mine."

"And who's going to bed in the early hours this morning?" teased Schuldich.

"You ...were right. This needs a fresh perspective," confessed Crawford, getting up from his chair and closing the scrapbook. "My fresh perspective."

"Finally," he said, with just a hint of exasperation. "Coming to bed?"

***

He needed to be needed. He needed to be wanted. And the thought that it would all stop if he gave in to what they both wanted. The flirting. The carnal glances the other man gave him when no one else was looking. Above all, the need. It pushed his emotions somewhere beyond the usual ambivalence.

Crawford stood in the ensuite bathroom and towelled his hair dry from the shower. He briefly debated whether he should emerge naked or put on a dressing gown. The future told him that Schuldich was already in Crawford's bed, naked under that lacy pink quilt cover. The idea of it all both amused and excited him. It was wonderfully, wonderfully wrong. He quickly decided on the dressing gown, if only because if he gave it much further attention Schuldich would pick up on his thoughts.

Already have done. Come to bed. As you are.

Crawford groaned inwardly and grabbed the black dressing gown from where it was hanging on a hook on the door. He hurried out.

The doubts kept coming as to whether he should go ahead with this. New ideas concerning the code and the chalice kept leaping into his mind and he was tempted to take another look at the map. On a few particularly dismal occasions in the past, he had even been known to plan future missions while in bed. It was clear to him that he could never sleep with a telepath if he couldn't keep his mind on the task at hand.

Without even looking at the man lying on the bed, Crawford crossed over to the east-facing window. He could hear the sounds of a city stirring from sleep and was reminded how close to dawn it was. The clear starlit sky brought to mind his conversation with Schuldich earlier. There certainly were better things for which to sell your soul ...if only he could be sure he hadn't already given it away for free.

Hurry up, or I'll start without you.

He turned towards the bed and Schuldich, and remembered why he hadn't looked at him to begin with. He had wanted to make up his own mind about sleeping with him for the first time without being swayed by mere appearances. Now that he was certain it was what he wanted, his eyes consumed the image of the other man stretched out on the bed.

Locks of rough bronze-coloured hair snaked round his shoulders, artificial orange light from the street lamps outside gave him flame highlights. The pastel pinks of the sheets and quilt that hid his physique only made his skin seem paler and his hair seem redder.

Already, Crawford was standing beside the bed, bending over Schuldich. He pushed the hair that he previously admired away from his face and ran his finger along the other man's jawline. Schuldich's arms shot upwards and dragged him onto the bed. As expected, Schuldich tugged at the silky cords that fastened the night gown and with one 'snap', Crawford felt them give and fall away. He lay on his back, black silk folding like dark blood around him. He suddenly felt conscious of being on display. The room felt hotter and he felt warmth creeping into his face.

He sank into the covers, and pushed himself against the red-head. Grasping long hair, he jerked Schuldich's head backwards, leaving his neck exposed and vulnerable. He bit, sucked and licked until he heard the telepath's breathing become harsher, then pressed the side of his head against the other man's chest. He lay there for some time, feeling Schuldich writhe against him. He curved an arm around him, held him still for as long as he thought possible. He listened to the throb of the other man's heart and, outside, the whispers of traffic grew louder. Cold blue daylight began to replace electric orange as the night crept away and the city awoke.

With a frustrated hiss, Schuldich shifted position. The other man drove his shoulder into the mattress and, with a moan that could have been from either one of them, the Schwarz leader found himself lying on his front with his deputy astride him. Crawford was barely aware of Schuldich's erratic breathing at the edges of his consciousness, each exhalation burning against his chilled skin at the base of his neck.

He was drawn deeper.

Every movement slowed to a crawl. The whispers of traffic, of business being conducted outside in the city, all of this changed. They sounded alive. They sounded as if they were occurring within that room. Crawford embraced this drug-like haze, and pulled Schuldich even closer into him.

Dark tendrils grasped and stroked his arms, his thighs, and pinned him to the mattress. Sleep deprivation, or a telepathic trick? Crawford let that question hang, moving into their grip so they could take him harder. They held him and reached into him, forced him to suck on their etheric tips.

With a start, he twisted his neck around and the whole room snapped into focus, white light outlining every detail and magnifying it against the blackness. He sought out his partner's eyes, his face, which he somehow expected to belong to someone else now. But, it was still Schuldich, whose demanding eyes questioned the uncharacteristic hesitation. Crawford glared back at him, momentarily angered by the other man's pretence of control. No words were exchanged, instead they sank back into their languid rhythm, until Crawford came with a murmur and a sigh, flooding the sheets.

The world sped up, and he gulped down the rapidly cooling air as his chest tightened. He felt the weight lift off him, and Schuldich lay beside him, running his fingers through his hair. Beads of sweat had formed on his face, and his pale skin had acquired a healthy reddish glow.

"You've an amazing selection of psychic tricks," Crawford said steadily, trying to control his breathing. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly as he shuffled further down into the tangle of sheets, expecting to be woken in a few hours.

He was not awake to answer when Schuldich drawled, seemingly only half-interested, "Psychic tricks ...?"

***

The late-morning sunlight wrapped around his naked body and drilled into his eyes, causing him to see multicoloured after-images when he glanced about the room. Crawford stretched out, and was satisfied to see that Schuldich was still sound asleep from the events of last night, curled in a foetal position. The pink lace of the quilt warped around him and sunbeams played across his muscular thighs. With a wry smile, Crawford thought of the etching of chalice depicting the holy light from heaven illuminating their prize.

"Eureka," he intoned softly. He had it. He had the answer.

He hurried out of bed and briskly went through his bathroom routine. As he went for breakfast, he passed Sally on the landing.

"I've come to change the sheets," she explained, with a knowing look in her eyes. She held in her hands black sheets with a simple floral pattern picked out in blue. She noticed that Crawford was examining it from a distance with a certain amount of relief in his eyes. "Pretty, isn't it? We've just moved in and were in the middle of redecorating when you arrived." She had begun conversationally, but she soon began to speed up, trying to get out all that she wanted to say. "Most of what you see here reflect the choices of the previous occupants. We tried to joke about it but ...well, we soon realised you were patronising us." She let Crawford take it all in.

There was no other word appropriate to describe it. "Shit."

"Please be careful when talking to Jei," she continued. "You know how he is. If there's a problem he'll go into denial, but he'll stew about it for ages. And, believe me, he's stewing about this."

He attempted to get a grip on what she was about to say and failed, but he couldn't work out if it was her Malefici powers, or a more serious problem with himself.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? I mean, Jei and I ...we couldn't help but hear last night ...." She stopped looking at him, and fixed her eyes on a point on her shoes.

A door opened behind her and Jei emerged from his study. He appraised Crawford coolly. "We thought something was being killed." A spark of interest appeared in Jei's eyes, then died. "Sally wanted to check you were safe."

Crawford remembered the lazy rhythm he and Schuldich had created, the slow movements that seemed to affect their surroundings as well as their bodies. He couldn't remember either of them calling out at all.

Sally put her arm round Jei's waist and pulled him close to her. He ran his fingers through her slightly curly blonde hair. Crawford watched him tilt his head to one side and stare at him in the dispassionate way that he remembered. This time, he felt no accompanying vision to warn him of what the man might do next, but nevertheless he stood his ground.

"I don't think the noise was all our doing," he began. Normally, he was the master of words. He considered himself to have the English, German and Japanese languages under his command, not to mention certain ancient languages Eszet required him to learn in order to perform their rituals, but without the future to enable him to detect another person's reaction to every single nuance, he felt off-balance. And, the thought pressed at the back of his mind, he would find it difficult to describe exactly what occurred under most situations. Somehow, Schuldich had used his powers in a strange new way and he had gone along with it, no questions asked.

The sun shone through a window at the end of the landing, casting each flowery detail in shadow. So different from the dreamlike state he had experienced last night. With a shudder, he asked himself how he could possibly have thought it was Schuldich's doing. Why did he give in to something that clearly was not achievable by Schuldich's telepathy in its current form? He felt like retreating back into the guestroom and beating his head against a wall.

"Go on," prompted Jei.

He tried to force his mind into the future to find out exactly what the telepath would say when he asked him about last night. Again, the visions refused to respond to him.

"There may have been something else in the room with us."

"Most likely. Think about the object for which you are looking. You thought you could escape the attention of the other worlds?"

Sally interrupted, "I did want to check you were safe, but Jei told me there was a large gap in his memory around late evening, when he should have warned you. Together, we worked out exactly what you'd done, and ...well, I did tell you he was brooding over it."

"I was not brooding," he insisted. "I would have warned them if they had let me."

Crawford rested a hand on Jei's shoulder. "My apologies," he said.

With a snort of anger, Jei swiped Crawford's hand away. "It's not good enough."

Sally gently forced Jei's head onto her shoulder. He closed his eyes and was silent. "Why don't you have breakfast and try to solve the map code?"

Crawford nodded, not giving away his suspicions. "When we have the chalice, we'll return and start again. We had a bad beginning, I think."

He smiled warmly at Sally, an expression he usually reserved for clients with whom he had just completed important negotiations. It was one that he loathed, but always got him good results. He left for breakfast.

***

Crawford used a piece of baking paper torn from a roll he had found under the sink in the kitchen. On it, he traced the etching of the chalice with a technical pencil, taking in every detail from the light shining down from above, to an outline of the crest in the middle. He took a slice of toast from the rack in the middle of the table and buttered it thinly before laying it on his side plate.

"Well?" asked Schuldich, on the other side of the breakfast table.

Crawford looked across at him over his rimless glasses and said nothing. He flicked to the copy of the map and fitted the tracing over it. It was a perfect match. The angle of the light paired exactly with the eastern compass point. Either side of the chalice base rested precisely on two small villages. The crest lay somewhere in the centre, on no special point of interest. Crawford's mouth twisted upwards into a smile.

He compared this to the twelfth century map he had previously found in Jei's study, and confirmed the location of these two places, approximately seven miles apart. Ignoring all other landmarks as mere noise, that would place the crest, and presumably the location of the chalice, as being roughly twelve miles away from either of the two villages.

"Schuldich, get me a recent map."

The telepath left the room with no comment. Crawford took a bite of toast and barely noticed it had gone cold.

Schuldich returned five minutes later, clutching a tourist guide. "It was the best I could manage. These people have a local map for every century except this one."

Crawford looked over the group of charts in the back of the book. They pointed out the best places to eat, to visit, or to buy gifts, but no mention of where one could get a deal with Lucifer. Nevertheless, he managed to pinpoint the two small villages, now large population centres. Exactly twelve miles away from both of them was a small collection of ruins. The guide devoted one line of text to the site and declared it not worthy of a visit.

"We have to get going," Schuldich told him. "I Persuaded some officials at the airport to give me a telepathic shout when those Eszet agents arrived. They're already on their way."

***

Crawford had wanted Schuldich to drive, but the telepath had insisted that he had some projects he wanted to work on. That would only mean one thing; that somewhere nearby a mind was being manipulated. Hopefully, the result would bring about an increase in Schwarz's bank balance.

"Actually, it's far more important than that."

"Hm?" Crawford tried to keep his mind on driving.

"Nagi." Schuldich leaned back as far as he was able in the car seat and waited for the questioning to begin.

"Naoe?" It was less of a question, more a reminder of what Crawford felt they should be calling him.

"He finds that name embarrassing."

"It's an indication of his status as an adult."

"No, it's not. He's not you."

Nagi was his student and his disciple. He liked the same things that Crawford liked, and wanted the same things Crawford wanted.

"No, Brad. He no longer wants the same things as you. You should face the facts. Children rebel from their parents. My father was a good man. And so what did I do, hm? I ran away as soon as I hit those teenage years. Nagi will be no different."

Crawford allowed a pause, hoping Schuldich would explain himself without actually having to ask. "What are you doing to him?"

"Showing him the truth. Showing him what he really wants and what he really is."

Crawford clicked his tongue, annoyed that now his powers had temporarily vanished he had to beg for Schuldich to keep talking, rather than to shut up.

"He must kill her. Last night, I made lots of progress when I forced him to see Farfarello and Sally through our eyes. He told me how different Tot was from Sally. His 'voice' trembled as he said that it would be different for them. I think he might have been crying."

"Anything goes as far as outsiders are concerned, but we don't use our powers against one of our own." Crawford's knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel tightly.

"But we --"

"Those are the goddamn rules!" he snarled.

"You're fiery when you've no powers to focus with." Schuldich grinned in a way that took all the power out of Crawford's argument. Against his will, the other man returned the smile.

"You used to think he'd be happier ruling the world alongside us rather than living an ordinary life with the bunny girl. What changed your mind?"

Crawford opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, choking on the emotions he could never vocalise.

The car cruised for miles with neither of the two men saying a word. Crawford stared ahead at the road and urged his brain to focus on the road signs that no longer seemed to be written in German. His vision started to blur around the edges and the blue sky faded to storm black.

He breathed in viscous air and kept driving.

The tarmac separated out into soft stone tablets, then rotated until he could see they were scales. It seemed as if the car no longer moved, but rather the reptilian skin writhed underneath it.

With a start, Crawford heard Schuldich emerge from his trance with a softly-spoken babble of different languages and streams of consciousness. The road seemed to obey this sound and retracted back into itself. Crawford grasped at his partner's voice.

He strained, and with a snap of pure reality, he turned to face Schuldich. By the look in the other man's eye, and the way he was looking him over, he could tell that he knew something had gone wrong.

"Crawford," he breathed, "What the hell are you?"

-- End Chapter Two --