^{Hello my lovely Steem creatures! I’m starting this post early in the day, but it will probably wind up being posted later as my child is standing on furniture howling. Trying to put tongue blood on her cousin, chasing around the kitten and generally just being a handful. XD}

^{If you haven't read them yet here are chapters 1 , 2 , 3 , 4. Surface Dwellers #1 fan @Veryspider (have you seen the wonderful fan art she made?!) chose B for last weeks installment, keeping it simple today, so here we go!}

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Surface Dwellers Chapter 5

We don’t have to dance.

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She stood for a moment, fighting her feelings. She swallowed her pride and bit her tongue. “Interesting place you’ve got here.” He smiled at her… was she crazy or was there still suspicion in his eyes. “Thank you.” Her words were as stiff as her back and she threw a glance at Lee as she brought the bag into the kitchen and began to sort through it. We don’t need this! We don’t need those stupid pretty eyes snooping around! Another look at Lee, a responsive nod. She internally groaned. “Would you like to stay for dinner Mr. Jackson?” She called, putting as much cheer in her voice as she could manage.

Please say no, please say no

“I’d love to.” Fuck. She threw a pained pout over at Lee, who of course suppressed a laugh. They didn’t need to actually speak about it. They both knew very well that the best way to deal with this little problem was to convince Mystery Trooper Jackson that they were a perfectly normal, albeit eccentric, family so that he would leave them alone. “I got dinner, go on.” Lee encouraged giving Lane a quick swat on the ass to get her moving, chuckling at the dramatics as her friend left the kitchen.

Lane really wasn’t sure how she felt walking back into Carter laughing that he didn’t know what a damned thing in this house was and Trooper Jackson up and examining their things. She speculated for a moment about how Ronan was playing sick much better than Carter was before creeping up behind Jackson. His eyes were searching something mounted on the wall. “Astrology.” Lane said, crossing her hands behind her back. “This is the exact placements of the planets, and other celestial bodies on the moment Ronan was born.” He threw a curious glance at her, “Memphis? Didn’t you say you we’re from around here?”

“We were just passing through. We started out in LA, decided to become vagabonds, free spirits, gypsies, whatever you’d like to call it, young. When I had Ronan, in the back of a truck in a not so pleasant neighborhood in Memphis, we decided it was about time to settle. Landed here a few weeks later… Nan… the old lady that chided you at the diner… she wouldn’t let us go any farther, so this is home. Our only home. Though we like to keep a bit of our roots.”

She motioned for him to follow with small tilt of her head and walked him along the wall, explaining herbs and symbols, charts and drawings. There was nothing upstairs that you couldn’t find in any human occult shop, all of the good stuff was locked away in the vault. “You might say ‘witches’, weeee say ‘naturalists’.” She finished with a shrug, ending their circle of the room at Carter and Ronan who had both nodded off to sleep. She leaned over with a small smile, put a small pillow under Carter’s lolling head and brushed the hair away from Ronan’s face. “I’m sorry.”

Lane jerked up a little, surprised. She was even more surprised to see the truth of it in the soft expression of his eyes. She just sort of stared at him quizzically as she rose, tucking a stray lock behind her ear and crossing her arms, she’d almost forgot about his earlier indiscretions. “If you’da seen the state of his place earlier… Well the whole thing was just… strange.” His eyes swept the room, there was still a fragment of suspicion in them, but it was different now. “But I don’t think you’d do him any harm. I can see how you and your friend love him and I’m sorry.”

Lane let her expression soften into a light smile, but as she opened her mouth to speak there was a tapping from the window. Both of their heads turned to see Mr. Crow perched on the outside sill. Lane walked over and opened the window to let him in, he pecked at her and and she gave him a little swat on the beak. “Don’t be that way, you’re a bird you should like being outside.” She scoffed before setting him on her shoulder. “You still got that bird?” Trooper Jackson stepped forward, and Mr. Crow screamed. Lane flinched at the caws in her ear and took a few steps back from the trooper, looking at him with more suspicion than he’d ever given her and stroking Mr. Crow with calming whispers.

“Dinner's ready.” Lee called from the kitchen doorway. Trooper Jackson retreated, Mr. Crow’s outburst had woken Carter, and Ronan was stirring. “Y’all go on, I’m going to settle Mr. Crow upstairs.” Lane said shooting Lee yet another conversation in a glance behind Jackson’s back. She took Mr. Crow up to her room and set him on the end of her bed. She crawled up. Laying on her side with her head resting on her arm she faced the bird, they stared at each other silently for a moment. Finally she spoke, her voice firm despite her doubts. “Show me.”

She lifted herself slowly against the pressure, choking against the smoke. She really didn’t like this place. She took a moment to let her eyes get accustomed to the burning, to the dark. Mr Crow flew by her ear, showing her where to go, down the steps, round the corner, through the living room. While she knew there to be four people around her kitchen table, here in the shadow lands it was empty.

Last time she was here Mr. Crow had shown her the most probable future… but that was not all there was to see in this place. Only certain animals could move freely through let alone guide someone through the shadowlands; crows, spiders, cats, bats, moths… This wasn’t a place you wanted to be without them. “Where’s the thread Mr. Crow?” She wheezed as she stepped through her back door. She saw it, a glint of gold…

And another, and another. Every person had hundreds, thousands of threads. The web of destiny that intertwined every person was vast and intricate and more complex than living mind could handle, but she’d only ever been shown one at a time. The one that she was supposed to work on, make sure happened… but now, she saw three separate and distinct golden threads. She moved towards the area of convergence… She leaned in close to be sure, yes, it was Jackson. One thread she could see attached to a figure by the house, even in this place she could easily recognize Lee’s outline. Two threads seemed to be going back further, lower. The Vault. Ronan and Carter. She could not of course, see her own thread to know if it was tied to him as well, but she assumed that it was. She looked back at him, so the threads she was meant to see were theirs.

”This is quite a game you’re playing bird.” Her words were an irritated hiss… she realized then that Trooper Jackson had his pistol drawn, with a sharp intake of breath she stepped in front of it and turned. The only way to see what it was point at was to follow the trajectory path. She only made it a few steps when she saw a face appear.

Her face

She bolted upright on the bed gasping. After a couple of seconds she looked down at the bird, her face colored with horror. He’d had his gun drawn at her. His thread was strongly tied to her family and his gun had been drawn at her. She shook the image from her brain, steadied her heart and hands, made her way to the bathroom to adjust herself, and rejoined the others. “He’s being feisty today.” She said as she sat down at the table, directly across from Jackson. She shot him a big smile before digging into diner.
On the surface everything was lovely, chatter and laughs and good food. Lane learned that Mystery Trooper prefered to be called Jack, though his first name was Charles. She learned where he was from and about his two sisters and his Mama, and his Daddy that left when they were little never to be seen again. She learned that he loved to work on and tinker with anything that had wheels, she learned that he built those muscles baling hay to help pay the bills until he was old enough to get a job as a cop. She learned about the accident that took his Mama and youngest sister away from him, and she learned that he’d moved here to a little one horse town in New York to be closer to his remaining sister and her family.

She almost liked him. He even helped Lee with dishes as she fought Ronan into bed. On the surface it couldn’t have been a more perfect night getting to know a new friend, but they weren’t surface dwellers, and Charles Jackson was not a friend. As Lane gave Ronan a final kiss on the forehead goodnight a commotion broke out outside. It sounded like a stack of pots and pans falling on a foghorn. “MY TRAP!”

Ronan nearly knocked Lane on her ass flying out of bed, and Lane… Lane was filled with a sudden, inexplicable terror. “RO NO!” She screamed, chasing after the fireball. Damn how is she so fast?! They raced passed the trio in the kitchen and Lane snagged her arm just as she got out the back door. Her body relaxed a bit, though her grip on her daughter didn’t, as she saw a raccoon nosing around in Ronan’s hair brained trap. She moved towards the racoon with Ronan, Lee and Carter and Jack hovered by the door. They were only a few feet away when the racoon turned and looked directly at Ronan, and Lane saw that the skin was separated from its eye sockets.

In the span of five seconds she turned throwing Ronan as hard as she could behind her as the racoon skin tore and the creature hiding within erupted. She was turned long enough to see Lee catch the child and pass her to Carter, to see him run with her back into the house where he knew she’d be safe, to the vault, long enough to see Jack pull his gun and move forward despite his expression of sickened horror. Long enough to see the barrel between her eyes. Long enough to hear him yell “Down!”

As she dropped out of his line of fire she turned back to the Skinwalker. Gunshot blared and she saw a bullet fly above her head through a cloud of poisonous bone dust where her face had just been. Covering her mouth and nose she rolled away from the bone dust fallout, she knew by the demonic screech that Jack hit his target. “Don’t breathe the powder!” She shouted, pulling her shirt up over her nose as she got back on her feet. It looked like he’d hit it on the shoulder, it rose with her and they began a circling game. As she sidestepped she kept her eyes low enough not to accidentally make eye contact, but not so low as to appear intimidated.

In one pass she’d seen that her warning was too late, Jack stood frozen, a sitting duck should she break the circle. Second pass and she saw that Lee was gone. She wouldn’t win a hand to hand with a Skinwalker... but it could break off and attack Jack at any moment, better it attack her than him. She couldn’t wait for Lee with Jack defenceless, if he could at least pull the trigger maybe, but he’d be like that for a while. She took a steadying breath and when her body was once again between the Skinwalker and Jack she stopped. A feral scream and it pounced with incredible speed, taking her to the ground. She had to fight gags with the creature on top of her, she had to use all of her might not to let he putrid scent of rotting corpses overwhelm her, she caught a glint of silver as it reared a hand back to strike. She released.

The creature flew back from the force of her magic, as it slammed against the garage Lane saw it pinned there by a barrage of flying knives. Gasping for fresh air she scrambled up towards Lee. The knife's alone wouldn’t hold it… or kill it. The magic she’d just used created more than a ripple, it made a cannonball splash. There was no sense in holding back now, so she used her magic to hold it there. “How long do you think we have?” Lee asked joining up at Lane’s side. “Not long, he’s strong… his wrist… I thought I saw something.”

Lee creeped forward to the Skinwalker, who was currently as paralyzed as Jack to examine the silver bracelet he wore. It was inscribed with a wreath of thorns. “Blackthorn.” Lee smiled looking back at Lane “But he’s got two.” Years ago they’d encountered someone else who wore the blackthorn bracelet, Hyde. They’d done their research since then… “He did this to you didn’t he?” Lane asked the Skinwalker, her voice breaking. “He made you this way… Promised you more power? He’s a good pretender…” Only certain bloodlines were allowed into the exclusive little blackthorn club, they’d gotten a hold of a record of these bloodlines, studied them into oblivion to find out exactly who Hyde was.

There weren’t many blackthorns with living relatives. Less with living relatives indicted into the cult, and even less of a species that could become a Skinwalker, and the only way to become a Skinwalker was to murder an immediate relative in cold blood. The only possibilities that came to mind were a pair of magically adept humans. “He convinced you to kill your own brother… So that you might be powerful enough to come for me.” She sighed heavily. “Malik Abram.” The Skinwalker writhed, making it harder to hold him. She was right then… he knew his name was coming. To name a Skinwalker was the only way to kill it. “Makiah Abram.”

She dropped her spell as the creature that once was Makiah Abram began to wither into itself. Eventually all that was left was what she could only think to call a skin raisin on the ground, covered in in the rancid furs it had been wearing, and the two blackthorn bracelets. “He made that too easy.” Lane said through clenched teeth too easy for us, anyway. “What is he playing at? Jim this morning… this tonight? A fucking racoon…a racoon...” Realization dawned on her features, she looked wide eyed at Lee and it was only a moment before she understood as well. “He’s letting us know he’s been watching us. He’s here, somewhere…”

“But he’s not coming at us directly, he made us use real magic…”

“Because he’s here waiting… for the Covenant to come do his dirty work for him. Bastard.” Lee turned and kicked a garbage can, breath short with anger. “What are we going to do about this one?” She asked, sending her curls bouncing in the direction of still paralyzed Jack. Lane groaned, motioning for Lee to hand her one of the couple of their kitchen knives still in her hand, the only couple that she hadn’t thrown at the Skinwalker. When she did Lane moved over to the frozen trooper and brought the knife to his neck. “Sorry about this Jack.” She said with a flick of her wrist.

She’d nicked him under his jawline, something that could be explained away as a razor slip during his morning shave, to see the color he bleeds. “Red.” She sighed with relief, for a moment she’d almost thought… Well, his blood was red, plain red and that couldn’t be falsified.

A. “Let’s go see if we can fix him up.” She suggested. She had a twinge of guilt about assuming he’d meant to kill her from what she’d seen in the shadowlands… if she’d turned into that dust… he’d saved her life. Maybe they could at least try to give him a chance.

B. “Take him home and make him forget. The poison will wear off and he’ll think he was sleepwalking.” They couldn’t deal with him right now, let him go on thinking he’d had a perfectly normal night here, let him leave them alone.