Chapter Text
If the house looked unlived in, a little cold and dusty and bleakly bright, that’s because it was. The furniture, the bizarre old statues were mostly the same, treated some twenty years with the same gentle neglect, and the effect was half-mausoleum, half-museum: a vast and sterile cairn waiting for insubstantial scholars to riffle through couch cushions or absentee mourners to leave flowers on the countertops.
Impossible to part with, the old house throttled Rose like an albatross, a physical manifestation of the lost past, so many locked doors. In her kindest assessment, it was quite like a military base, made first for training and then a jump-off to a wider world; sentiment made as much sense as calling an orange-doored storage unit ‘home’. Yet, tapping her heels against the tile and running fingers along the marble, Rose did feel a sense of the present in the old house, diffusing like fading daylight through the lavender shades. Just no future.
Tucked in the kitchen-desk recess, the old-school answering machine —voicemail was inadequate for the sheer number of calls she ignored— blinked like a motion sensor warning away a visitor too close to a gallery’s exhibits. It chronicled encroachment; thirty-seven different intrusions, about four for each week she was gone. She considered the likelihood any of it would matter, index finger applying half-pressure to the erase button, but was distracted by a steady drip from the water dispenser in the refrigerator door. The fix: stop it up with a paper towel. After, she ignored the quiet beeps and plugged in her laptop, ten days dead, to coax it back to life.
Rose hadn’t minded the brief seclusion, traveling completely untethered, but in the meantime it looked like John had something that just could not wait, and of course made this known incessantly.
EB: hey rose!
EB: you’ve got mail!
EB: no really, check your messages.
EB: you’re in for a treat!
EB: rose, where are you?
EB: seriously, return the call.
EB: this could be huge!
EB: dude, don’t make me look like an asshole.
EB: i went out on a limb for you here.
EB: so just check your voicemail, would you please??
The time stamps showed he’d been patient enough; it must have nearly killed him. Well, let him wait a while longer, she smirked.
Rose microwaved her huge cup of airport coffee and thumbed through her latest notebooks, all covered in green linen and tied shut with leather thongs. These were filled with interviews with Ethiopian blacksmiths, all canvassed in a quest to trace an interesting regional lycanthropy, thought to be hereditary between master and apprentice. No biting, no blood transmission, only the tradesmen were implicated. Fascinating.
Africa itself was endlessly interesting to Rose, and she found the weather and the landscape, the endless robin’s egg sky, enlivening, a sauna for the soul. Not the villages, though, the children with murky eyes and basket-bellies; those were much worse than any were-hyenas could be. Kids, no matter what the circumstance, were still hard to look at and she recoiled from their company hot-cheeked and layering ice over embarrassment whenever she couldn’t avoid them to start.
She didn’t give it much thought. Some things seemed too simple to warrant excessive introspection. Or maybe too hard.
John’s exhortations did pique her interest, not least because she didn’t think his Dethphone made calls out, and eventually she laid aside the clipped observations in the notebooks and listened to the messages. Until number thirty-four, there was nothing interesting or notable: just some lecture opportunities from New York’s main skeptics’ club, a “journalist” with the newly rebooted Weekly World News, reminders for overdue library books scattered though cities across the Eastern Seaboard.
But when the first the unusual caller, a light and emotionless female voice, identified herself as the Mordhaus operator, Rose was more confused than ever. The next two were different men, young and strong tenors, the second much more nervous sounding; they said they were representing the Dethklok’s business office, both claiming to be the personal assistant to the CFO. None gave any concrete information at all, besides the same 800 number.
The final voice, terse and salty like an exasperated prep-school headmaster with bad allergies, she recognized from Sunday morning talk shows. John mentioned him often, with an apostle’s giddiness, though there was very little gravitas over the phone line to justify it. The business manager finally gave her some details: it seemed her “expertise” was sought to “consult” on a “special project”. Well, that was illuminating. When he listed the same number, she jotted it down on the back of an envelope. A personal contact from the brains behind John’s operation seemed to necessitate some follow up.
tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering elusiveBarbarian [EB]
TT: Hi.
TT: I’ve taken your tenderly-proffered advice, but, strangely enough, excessive badgering by five different cryptic messengers has failed to convince me to care about whatever this is.
TT: Perhaps you’d like to take another crack at it, before I push this incident from my mind altogether.
TT: John?
EB: god rose!
EB: i told you not to call me that!
EB: you’re gonna get me in trouble!
TT: My apologies, Male Human of My Acquaintance.
EB: bluh.
EB: so, what do you want to know?
TT: Any information at all would be an improvement.
TT: These calls sound like attempts to collect a debt, though I’m certain Dethklok is not among my creditors.
TT: I would probably be kidnapped and partially disemboweled right now if they were.
EB: hahaha! no comment!
TT: So what do these cohorts of yours want?
EB: for you to come to mordhaus and use your grimdark spooky brainpower to help out with the new album!
TT: ...
TT: Really?
EB: yeah!
TT: Me?
EB: yeah!!
EB: i don’t know the details.
EB: but it’s going to be a looooot of money...
EB: and a lot of fun!
TT: I don’t know. This actually sounds like a waste of my time, and perhaps theirs.
TT: My talents aren’t exactly suited for music production.
TT: Why not offer up Dave as the sacrificial mix-master to the gods of your careerist maneuverings?
EB: are you serious?
EB: dave is not metal.
EB: and this doesn’t help my career at all.
EB: maybe I’m just doing you a solid, you ever think of that?
EB: maybe I just thought it would be cool for you to meet the band.
EB: and maybe, just maybe, I was excited that we’d get to hang out!
TT: You don’t sound very certain about any of those assertions.
EB: rose, come on.
TT: If it doesn’t gain you standing if I acquiesce, will it go badly for you if I refuse?
EB: ...
TT: ?
EB: ...
TT: John.
EB: ...
TT: John!
EB: ...
EB: pfft!
EB: hahahaha, gotcha!
TT: Well, I’m glad you’re amused. I was afraid you were typing with splinters under your nails already.
EB: come on, where do you think i work, walmart?
EB: the big boss will probably never listen to me again but its totally ok if you say no.
EB: just call them and tell them, alright?
TT: I suppose there’s no reason to be impolite.
EB: it would have been really cool if you’d come though.
TT: Yes, well. I’m not sure if it’s a good fit.
EB: yeah, yeah.
EB: i’d tell you to think about it, but i know you already are.
TT: Oh? What makes you think this holds any allure at all for me?
EB: you’d never pass up a chance to bore people about the weird stuff you like.
TT: Ha ha! Your persuasion tactics could use some work, and your putdowns aren’t terribly subtle.
EB: i wasn’t putting you down, and it’s not my job to persuade you.
EB: in fact, today it is my job to drive master wartooth to his guitar lesson.
TT: You really are just living the high life of demonic luxury, aren’t you?
EB: you know it!
EB: i gotta go though.
TT: Bye.
EB: see you soon!
elusiveBarbarian [EB] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]
He was infuriating with all his far-flung assumptions and his stupidly shallow perceptions and his being right all the time. Of course Rose was considering what this kind of opportunity could yield her, and the monetary compensation wasn’t the least attractive aspect. Maybe it would be enough that she could start investing for her long-term term dream project: an endowment for an occult research institution. She’d even toyed with the idea of calling it Miskatonic University, ironically of course.
Sorting through all the possibilities, shifting each thought into pro and con columns, she climbed the stairs and entered the little study she’d used as depository for all her notes and pilfered books. The accumulation was quicker than her organizing, and every horizontal surface looked like part of a jagged mountain range of paper and covered cardboard. She settled to the floor, cross-legged in a tiny space between the knee-high piles and the tall bookshelf by the window; on its bottom shelf rested a clutch of stout black Moleskines, the laborious fruit of her Dethklok research.
Each was filled with prim scarlet lettering --it seemed more suitable than lavender-- detailing every pertinent thing, ever minute tidbit she could find: aggregations of reviews for each album, lists of possible influences for important songs (with citations to chapbooks and other journals elsewhere in the room), interviews with fans and vendors. All in all, it was an impressive undertaking, explicating more than just the music, but the very essence of the band. It gave her no small pleasure to know that she was probably the foremost living Dethklok scholar, and her thorough research, combined with an unparalleled professionalism, was what elevated her to that status.
Nowhere in the notebooks would you find the unpalatable gushing that littered even the more thoughtful corners of the internet and, even more sadly, riddled the academic papers. There were whole Metal Studies departments at prestigious schools that were nothing by infinite recursions of fannish squeals, lacking all sense of propriety and detachment; the entire enterprise was full of senseless fawning, and she was once thrown out of an entirely unrelated class for using the word “circle-jerk” to describe it. It took years to let that bitter event (tantamount, she felt, to watching the study of the world’s most vital artform drift into sad irrelevance) recede from her memory and allow herself to actually listen to the music. Of course, that was only after the troll.
The troll and its summoning, an event Rose termed “The Espoo Incident”, were at the heart of her renewed fascination with the musical forces focused on the dark and abhorrent. Its existence was scrubbed from all mainstream media, replaced with a cover story that painted the band and the immense loss of life in an innocent, even trivial, light. A testament, perhaps, to the business manager’s spindoctor prowess, though there was a fine tradition of intelligent overseers hiding away the darkest eldritch truths from the masses.
Just as there was a rich history of clear-sighted truth-seekers getting to the bottom of such obfuscations. Rose had sifted through the planted accounts and arrived at the truth, or at least close enough to touch it, by relentlessly gathering through-the-cracks facts and personal accounts-- most importantly, an eye-witness, a Helsinki girl she found accidentally in a Frankfurt hostel, who described the beast with wide eyes and trembling hands. The only thing missing from her comprehensive report was the monster’s name and the song that called it, which had to be pretty brutal.
It galled her that even after pouring over an authentic copy of a Scandinavian book of Necronomic spells, she couldn’t grasp those last pieces. Her archive remained incomplete. It was goddamned ridiculous how many different lake trolls there were in Finland.
This invitation, perhaps, was a chance to remedy her ignorance, Rose reasoned, but she worried the cost, the strain on her objectivity might prove too much. As much as the smooth, empty pages gnawed at her, as she wanted a definitive record and frankly just to know, she didn’t aspire to be the Jane Goodall of metal, traipsing through the deep jungle of absurdity that enveloped the whole scene, with Dethklok at its dark heart.
Yes, it was a dangerous prospect, but exhilarating, and her mental tally kept zeroing out. She ran her thumbnail over the corners of the paper, fanning them out like a flipbook while she bit her lip, so deep in thought and totally unsure she hardly heard the phone ring, and nearly missed catching it before it died out.
Maybe Ofdensen was all that John made him out to be; he certainly had excellent timing, Rose conceded as she lowered the receiver back on the tines. She was so surprised, flustered even, when she answered the call that, without thinking clearly, she agreed to discuss the finer points of the proposal in person. When he offered to send a “hatredcopter” to retrieve her in the morning, she felt strongly, but without knowing how, that she had seriously fucked up somewhere.
XxXxX
“May I offer you some brandy? Cigar?”
His motion towards the humidor and crystal decanter on the corner of the desk was economical, calculated to look off-hand and casual. He’s trying to be charming, Rose thought, quirking an eyebrow at the offerings.
“No, thank you. I don’t partake of either before lunch.”
“Ah. Of course.” His face shifted from the slight smile he’d worn since she arrived, settled into a hard line parallel to the deep crease in his relaxed brow. Immediately, Rose reassessed: this is no practiced snake oil salesman, just a slightly overwrought, naturally nervous professional. She recrossed her legs smoothly, carefully; her eyes never left his face, searching for any downward glance, any increase in tension around his mouth. If he was as awkward as he seemed, maybe she could get what she wanted without giving up anything in return.
He did look, but had no reaction, no tick or tell to accompany it. Disappointing. He spoke again after the slightest of pauses, “Well, to business then. Your reputation for this, ah, sort of thing is excellent; Dethklok is very excited to work with you.”
She frowned slightly. “My reputation? I thought I was here under the auspices of our mutual connection, my friend, your employee, not the general buzz my work has created. Which is admittedly and purposefully minimal.”
“Of course,” he replied, his voice neutral, casual, if a little patronizing. His posture in the high leather chair, angled and confident, hands tented before him said one thing: he was underestimating her. Rose was beginning to get irritated already. “Number 1025 first brought you to our attention, though, ah, the band had been thinking about bringing someone of your qualifications and skills on board for some time. We naturally looked into your work --quite impressive-- to attempt to verify some of the, uh, claims 1025 made.”
“Oh? What was their nature?”
“Ha! Well, he spoke very highly of both your knowledge of the arcane and, ah, your personal expertise in the use of dark arts. He mentioned a joint adventure some years ago. That you were a student of eldritch gods. Something about tentacles.”
Fucking Egbert. He resisted most when the four friends’ agreed to never, ever mention the game, the Medium, any of it to anyone else, with the subtext that they would limit its discussion even among themselves. But always, he picked and picked at it and now was spilling secrets like a cracked mug. Only some sort of miracle kept his loose-lipped idiocy from landing them all in an institution. It took all her poise not to bring both of her palms to her forehead; instead, she smiled softly and, she hoped, winsomely.
“You believed him, Mr. Ofdensen? You bought this tale of black magic from beyond the stars and the teen girl who wields it?” She let her mouth slide into a grin, motioning to her demure purple blouse and floral skirt with two open palms. “Do you think I’m a witch, sir?”
He smiled a little in return, but his hazel eyes were uncreased and chilly, April frost touching a reawakening patch of mud and grass.
“Certainly not, Ms. Lalonde. Naturally, I take such stories with a grain of salt.” The smile was gone, and the manager shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Looking to a far corner of the large office, suddenly a million miles away, he twisted away from Rose slightly.
“Though, I must admit, I’ve been with Dethklok for, ah, a number of years. In that time I’ve heard similar and seen worse. Terrible accidents; brutal, unexplainable things.” He gave her a split-second side-eye look. “True horrors.”
Now, she thought smugly, when he was vulnerable in this grim reverie, was the time to prod. “Like the troll in Finland?”
It was a mistake. Ofdensen turned back to her, stare contracted and focused on her face with steely precision. A dangerous look, raw violence, something buried even underneath; she was a threat now, and would have to be very careful if she was to make it out of this room.
“What do you know about the Espoo Incident?”
The common appellation displaced her fear, and she released her breath and ventured a wan smile. “Only that it happened. And even that I have kept to myself, as a matter of...professional courtesy.” He relaxed again, leaning back and regarding her levelly, once again disinterested and blank. Thank god.
“Uh-huh. Well. I appreciate your, ah, discretion. It’s a very good quality to have when you work with Dethklok.”
Now it was her turn to fidget uneasily. “I have to admit, I came here unprepared to accept your offer. Any offer.”
When he raised his eyebrows, it made his forehead look like a set of Venetian blinds; next to his all-business look, this resigned incredulity was probably his most common expression.
“So there’s, ah, no point in even beginning negotiations? Strange. Why did you even take the meeting?” He sounded more long-suffering than cross, already resigned that he was, perhaps, conversing with another typical idiot.
“I’m an old-fashioned girl, Mr. Ofdensen: when a man sends a helicopter to pick you up, it’s good manners to humor him.”
He chuckled. Another opening, perhaps.
“Besides, who would refuse an opportunity to visit Mordhaus? The architecture alone was worth a trip.”
Palms on the deep burl oak desktop, he pushed back his chair and stood. Damn, she thought, miscalculated again; she was losing him.
“You’ll certainly have to have a tour before you go. The grounds are quite stunning this time of year; and of course some of the furnishings are quite old and might be of interest to you. There’s the stables, the great hall, the library. I don’t get down there often, but I’m told it’s, ah, worth seeing.”
Reaching into the top drawer, Ofdensen removed a rectangular slip and pushed it to her side of the desk.
“Though I respect your position, I would be, ah, remiss if I didn’t at least try to make you reconsider.”
It was a check of course, and probably a generous one at that: of course he would think that was her game. Rose reached slowly and grasped it gingerly, an act of cautious interest. It was all about subtlety, now.
The surprise on her face was genuine, an unbelievable sum already made out in her name, and it worked in her favor. She could already smell the must of ancient tomes, feel ripples of leather spines under her fingers, but he would think that the money was the turning-point. She was happy to let him.
“Charles —may I call you Charles?— I think we can come to an arrangement after all.” Rose tried on her most mercenary leer, and was met with that business-like smirk. Good, he thinks he’s won; now she can press. “Though, I will have some conditions.”
“I, ah, have no problem with that. What will you need?”
“I’m not... entirely sure yet. I’d like some time to get my bearings, a trial period, if you will,” she said, careful to sound detached and unconcerned. He regarded her with an equally bland look.
“Alright. How about we go and meet the boys. They’re very eager to get started.”
She walked to the office door and stood aside, waiting with stiff posture while he opened it for her. In the hall, he made a tsking noise and apologized: he would have to make a call before they went down, if she wouldn’t mind waiting a moment.
Turning back to his desk with a curt nod, he moved quickly and Rose already sensed a change in his demeanor, plasticity replacing the previous awkwardness in his stride, and as she watched him pick up the phone, his face changed. His eyes looked brighter, and his mouth arced into a different smile, more brittle and wolfish and entirely too self-satisfied. Oh, this was not good.
But before she could fully interrogate what this change could mean, her mind bucked and was overthrown. Something, someone, was touching her, a single finger trailing a long diagonal line across the small of her back. She shivered and turned towards its source, too late, nothing there. Like the shoulder-tapping prank John played sometimes and only Jade fell for.
Down the hall, already ten feet away, two masked men strode confidently away from her. On the right, there was a dwarf with what appeared to be a jockstrap outside his pants and the other, tall and lean, moved with a lanky strut. When he looked back at her over his shoulder, she couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t make out if they were a familiar electric blue, but she could see in the set of his shoulders, how he moved his arms: he was loose and laughing, grinning with his whole body.
No, not enough to tell, but enough to set her pulse thudding in her throat. Her stomach felt like a brick. When the manager returned an second later —"They’re ready for us in the rec room," he said, frowning and watching her blush with narrowed eyes— she coughed lightly before she could answer, not entirely trusting her voice.
“Please,” she said softly, “lead the way.”