Tremor

Chapter 5

05

Wallis was nowhere in sight by the time Emily returned to the attic, and instead, she found Lingonberry at the microscope again and the umbrella by his side, leaning rather precariously against the bench.

"Ah, good afternoon, Miss Greene," Lingonberry looked up from the microscope briefly, knocking the umbrella loose, "I trust the deliveries went well?"

"Ah, yes," Emily nodded, snatching up the umbrella before it could clatter to the floor, "quite well. I assume I have you to thank for asking Penny to take me to the seamstress?"

"That? Oh, no, that was Penny's idea," Lingonberry removed the slide from the microscope, and divided the contents between two other slides so that all three slides contained a sample. He scribbled a small chalk sigil onto the bench, and placed a slide onto the sigil.

The slide glowed briefly, but nothing else happened.

"Interesting," the Magician tugged thoughtfully at his beard, "Miss Greene, could you pass me the glass jar from the shelf to your left?"

Emily placed the umbrella against the bench again, this time in a less unsteady position, and handed the glass jar to Lingonberry, who placed it on the bench.

Then, without warning, the Magician pulled a wooden mallet from the depths of his dressing gown's pocket – How on earth does he fit anything in there? Emily wondered briefly – and smashed it into the second glass slide with all his strength.

Emily jumped back at the sudden movement while Lingonberry placed the half-shattered slide under the microscope.

"Take note, Miss Greene," Lingonberry gestured for Emily to come closer and look into the microscope, "that a blunt blow does indeed disrupt the virus' hold on the victim's body."

"However?" Emily asked as she looked into the microscope, only to see a slowly receding blue light that flickered before dying. She sensed that the Magician had a point to make.

"However," Lingonberry agreed, "it is not a feasible solution, considering that one simply does not have the time to go about coshing the victims over the head. A more effective method would be to use a drain to suck away the substance, but one would also need a space large enough to contain the substance once it has been drained from the victim."

"A drain?" Emily wondered if she was supposed to know what the Magician meant.

"Uh, magical drain," Lingonberry explained quickly, "much like a blackhole and matter- never mind, I keep forgetting that your people aren't supposed to know about that yet."

Before Emily could wonder at the meaning of that statement, Lingonberry reached over, picked up the umbrella and opened it.

"Yes, my dear Miss Greene, I do realise that opening an umbrella indoors is considered bad luck, but sometimes the means justify the ends," Lingonberry was looking at the sigil he'd drawn on the underside of the umbrella with a thoughtful expression upon his face.

He closed the umbrella and seized a nearby piece of paper, scribbly madly onto it, and held up the piece of paper to show yet another sigil. "It's the same one on the umbrella. What do you think?"

"I…" Emily bit her lip. Somehow, she thought that telling the Magician that the sigil was 'pretty' was not an adequate point. "I am not familiar with sigils."

"Oh, of course!" Lingonberry clapped a hand to his forehead, "It slipped my mind. Do not worry about it, Miss Greene. Just observe."

Lingonberry carefully held the piece of paper above one of the slides, and Emily gasped to see thin blue wisps of light drift up and zoom into the sigil.

The Magician grinned at Emily, obviously pleased at the results. Emily, however, had another matter on her mind. "…where did it go?"

Lingonberry tapped the glass jar, and Emily's eyes widened as she realised the bottom of the jar was coated in a thin layer of white powder.

"The drug in its purest form," Lingonberry declared proudly, "and all that's left on the slide is some saliva and blood, completely intact."

"You've found a cure, then?" Emily picked up the jar carefully, and shook it slightly, watching the white granules skitter across the inside of the jar.

"Yes. Almost."

"Almost?"

"If I were to drain every undead and infected victim of this substance, and if the reports of the growing numbers of the undead are to be believed," Lingonberry took the glass jar from Emily, frowning sadly, "this glass jar would have to be… well, let us simply say it will have to be very, very large. And I do not have a very, very large jar."

"Why not simply split it into several jars, then?" Emily voiced her thoughts. "Surely it is not that hard to direct the spell to drain the substance into different jars."

Lingonberry blinked. "That… that is not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all!" the old man leapt to his feet, and dashed out the attic with more dexterity than what should have been possible for his age.

"Penny!" he called. "Give me your glass jars!"

Emily knew better than to question why Penny would have a collection of glass jars. Even if she had considered it, the quiet left in the Magician's absence was broken by a muffled ringing.

"That'll be the phone," Lingonberry's voice drifted from somewhere downstairs.

"Where is it?" Emily called back, scanning the attic for the ringing machine.

"Cupboard next to the hair dye!"

Emily shook off her surprise at the unusual placement of the phone, and opened the cupboard to find the phone waiting, still ringing. Emily paused for a second, wondering what she was supposed to say, then pulled the phone off the receiver, "Brownstone Attic. How may I help you?"

"…Miss Greene?" Chief Barker had clearly not been expecting to hear from her. "Is the Magician present?"

"Mr Lingonberry is not here at present. May I take a message?" Even as she spoke, Emily scrounged around for a notepad and pencil.

"I… yes," Chief Barker seemed to decide that Emily could be trusted, "the police require assistance. Magical assistance. Wesker Leander was tracked to the city's catacombs, but there's been a situation. There were more of the undead than previously suspected, and I'm afraid our cordon is about to be overrun. Mr Lingonberry's assistance is required immediately."

"I will pass on the message," Emily assured the chief, "is there anything else?"

"No. Good day to you, Miss Greene."

At that, the phone clicked.

Emily turned to the doorway, on the verge of shouting for Lingonberry only to find the Magician coming into the attic, arms piled with glass jars followed closely by Penny, who had a similar load in her arms.

"Was that Felix?" Lingonberry asked as he set the jars on the clear spaces on the bench, and a couple were left to the floor when the bench was covered.

"No, that was Chief Barker. She said she requires your assistance in reining in the undead at Oakston's catacombs."

"Oh, dear," Lingonberry's expression turned serious, eyebrows furrowing in worry. "Felix went there not fifteen minutes ago."

With that, Lingonberry picked up Emily's umbrella and handed it to her. "You, of course, could handle the issue on your own, but I don't believe Felix will all too happy if I were to send you into a nest of cadavers by yourself. I shall be coming along."

From the depths of his never-ending dressing gown pocket, the Magician dug out a piece of chalk and scribbled away at the teleportation sigil on the ground. "There, that should get us there. Just step onto the sigil after I've gone."

Penny and Emily watched as Lingonberry stepped onto the sigil. Their interest only increased when Lingonberry failed to disappear in a flash of light.

"How very unusual," the Magician muttered, then stepped off the sigil, and double checked his chalk markings. Lingonberry muttered under his breath, a few words of Latin reaching Emily's ears. "Oh. This is not good."

"Grandfather?" Penny prompted the Magician carefully. "What's wrong?"

"Someone's warded the catacombs," Lingonberry scowled, "against my spellwork."

"You mean the police walked into a trap?" Emily blanched, feeling remotely ill.

"Yes, but not if I can help it," Lingonberry spun around and dug through a cupboard, "now, I know I left it here somewhere…"

"Are you looking for this?" Penny held up a musty old tome.

"Ah, good, you found my grimoire. Miss Greene," Lingonberry smiled in a very satisfied manner, "you are about to see what a fool with chalk, candles, a grimoire and a faint grasp of the Latin language can do. Unfortunately," the Magician continued as he produced several candles from the same cupboard he was looking in earlier, "this spell is rather taxing, and we will be in no shape to help you after we send you to the catacombs."

"We?" Emily repeated. "Penny, you're a magician too?"

"Magician in training," Penny corrected Emily smoothly. "My Latin is deplorable."

Lingonberry bustled about, standing up several candles at the points of the sigil, and lit each one carefully with a match. "Penny," he dusted off his knees and stood up, "if you please. And Miss Greene, if you will step onto the sigil."

Penny stood up on the opposite side of the sigil while Emily stepped onto the sigil, half expecting to be transported away instantly.

"Now!" the Magician commanded, and Emily had time to notice that both Lingonberry and Penny's eyes were glowing before she blinked, and found herself underground, and surrounded by snarling cadavers.

She did the only thing one could do when surrounded by the undead – scream, and loudly, at that.

To her surprise, the undead did not suddenly converge on her like a swarm of bees. Rather, they fell back, standing uncertainly in a small circle with Emily at the centre. Emily could not be blamed for panicking, given the circumstances, and she waved the only weapon at hand – the umbrella – at the cadavers. "Get back! Stay away!"

To her disappointment – and mostly fear – the undead seemed to have gotten over their shock quite easily and were crowding around again.

Well, I certainly have the worst luck, Emily thought sourly through her fear. "Luck?" Emily spoke aloud, her mind flashing to a piece of advice from the wizard on opening an umbrella indoors. Granted, she was technically underground, but the point still stood. "I sure hope the means justify the ends in this case," Emily muttered under her breath and opened the umbrella, holding it over her head.

The girl blinked, squinting at the sudden bright green light emanating from the underside of the umbrella. Had she been a member of the blood-sucking variety of the undead, she may have hissed about the light and cringed away.

Thump.

Emily jumped at the noise, and looked at the small undead crowd in time to see several others fall in a pile of decomposed flesh, silvery blue tendrils swirling up and from the bodies, each reaching up in arcs towards the sigil on the umbrella, each vanishing with a flash.

(Meanwhile, Lingonberry and Penny watched with what could only be described as unholy glee at the rapidly filling glass jars.)

Half a minute later, Emily was still surrounded by cadavers. On the upside, these were not the kind that were reanimated. Gingerly, Emily began to pick her way through the catacombs, trying not to step on the bodies and wincing when her boots crunched against cold fingers.

She fought the urge to gag, and steadied her grip on the umbrella, still glowing green and held aloft, casting a strangely comforting light in the otherwise eerie charnel house.

"You can do this, Emily," she closed her eyes briefly, taking in a small breath, only to regret it. Catacombs did not smell nice. Especially not ones filled with cadavers in various stages of decomposition.

As Emily made her way further down the tunnel, trying not to brush against the walls of bones as she went, she noticed that it was silent, save for her own breathing and the occasional crunch of a bone underfoot. It was not a comforting thought – that all the police were gone, or that they were watching from the shadows were both quite disturbing in their own rights.

A hand grasped her arm, and Emily swung the still-open umbrella on instinct at the owner of the hand, biting back another shriek of horror.

"Will you please stop that?" Felix Wallis, looking a little ruffled but otherwise unharmed, hissed in an annoyed whisper.

Emily gathered her wits and mustered up a glare. "Was it necessary to surprise me?"

"I see you are unhurt," Wallis remarked dryly, then added, "keep your voice down. Where's Lingonberry?"

"He couldn't make it," Emily answered, her brief anger dissipating. "He said this place was warded."

"Wonderful," Wallis muttered, running a hand through his blond hair, grimacing when his hand came away with dirt. "Did he tell you if he worked out a way to stop the undead?"

"Yes," Emily gave the umbrella a little shake for emphasis. "This."

"The umbrella?"

"The umbrella," Emily confirmed. "It can drain away the drug if it is close enough."

Wallis, to his credit, took all this in stride. "Very well. Weasel is further down this passageway at the centre of the catacombs. There will probably be several undead waiting."

"What of the rest of the police?" Emily asked. "Are they alright?"

"They will be fine," Wallis gave the umbrella a critical look, "assuming that umbrella can indeed do what you say it can."

"There's an entire room of cadavers if you wish for proof," Emily muttered softly, but Wallis heard it all the same.

"I was wondering about that," Wallis admitted after a moment. Then, he shook himself out of his thoughts and gestured for Emily to follow him. "Try to keep as quiet as possible. And is there a way of dimming that thing?"

…

Much to Wallis' annoyance, there was not a way of attempting to approach the centre of the catacombs covertly, at least, not with the umbrella shining like a beacon in the dark passageways. And so, Emily had been forced to close the umbrella, hold it in one hand while her other hand held onto a dim lantern that did little to light the way.

Without the protective green glow, Emily felt very much exposed.

In front of her – and Emily applauded his bravery in daring to venture in front of her, and without a lantern at that – Wallis suddenly came to a halt, then turned around and blew out the candle in the lantern. What little light the lantern had offered disappeared, and the two were left in pitch darkness.

"Can you hear that?" Wallis' voice drifted out of the darkness in a whisper.

Emily strained her ears until they picked on distant sounds of groaning and snarling, her heart thumping in growing terror at the noise. "Oh, goodness."

"I'll take that as a yes. Come on," Wallis' warm fingers found hers, and took the lantern from her. A moment later, a match flared, and the lantern was relit.

"Why did you put it out in the first place?" Emily found herself curious enough to ask as Wallis handed the lantern back to her.

"Your other senses are usually sharpened if one is… deprived," Wallis put it delicately, and Emily caught a glimpse of Felix under the tough exterior. "One of the more practical lessons from Lingonberry that did not involve chalk."

"I see," Emily's tone of voice suggested that she could not imagine why the somewhat batty Magician would even think to teach such a thing.

A hint of a grin hovered at Felix's lips momentarily before it flitted away again. "We'll need a plan to take on Weasel. We can hardly drop into the midst of a horde of zombies and expect to survive. Would you like to serve as a distraction, or to attack the matter at the heart?"

"Distraction, or bait?" Emily raised an eyebrow.

Wallis shrugged. "In this situation, both could apply."

"That is hardly comforting."

"You are in a catacomb filled with the undead and one drug smuggler who may or may not know magic," Wallis pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone. "I do not see how anything could be considered comforting now."

"…I see your point."

"May I see the umbrella for a moment?" Wallis suddenly asked out of the blue.

Emily handed it over obligingly, and Wallis opened it. The passageway remained dark. Wallis swapped it to his other hand, and once again, the umbrella remained unlit. The man frowned, and turned the handle over, studying it carefully, then handed it back to Emily.

A green glow filled the passageway, and Wallis sighed. "I was afraid of this."

"Afraid of what?"

"The umbrella only works for you," Wallis took the umbrella from Emily, and the light disappeared. He closed it and handed it back to her. "Or, at least, this particular spell works only for you."

"And that means…?"

"You, Miss Greene, will have to be bait."

Emily hissed a particularly rude word, and Wallis graciously pretended not to hear. "I need you to enter the centre and make as large as a scene as you can. The umbrella should keep you safe from the undead."

"Should?!"

"Keep your voice down. While you create a distraction," Wallis continued on with his plan, "I will attempt to remove the amulet Weasel is using to control the cadavers from him. Do try to keep the undead occupied until then, won't you?"

"This is the most hare-brained plan I have ever heard, Mr Wallis." Emily pointed out the flaws. "There are so many things that could wrong."

"But," Wallis' eyes glinted in amusement, in spite of the situation, "I believe it is a better plan than simply jumping on a train that one has no idea where it leads to."

Emily was glad for the dim light. It hid her blush quite well.

…

The centre of the catacombs was a large, cathedral-like structure, with dusty bones lining the walls, stretching up to the ceiling. Wooden torches gave the room a particularly Medieval appearance, with the flickering light. It may have been a slightly more fascinating sight if it were not for the undead currently infesting its lofty rooms.

As one, the undead swerved to the entrance, where a mousy-haired young lady stood, clutching an umbrella in a white-knuckled grip, green eyes wide with terror. She did not look as if she had the power to face down an entire horde of a mixture of undead and possessed policemen.

And that was probably why Weasel barely spared her a second glance before waving a flippant hand at her. "Get rid of her," he commanded, and the silver amulet, hovering over an intricately carved stone pedestal, flashed blue. The undead nearest to Emily started forwards.

The undead obviously did not expect to drop, completely inanimate, at the feet of the mousy-haired girl, as each one slowly turned around and made its way toward her, uncaring that its brethren were being drained one by one.

By the time Weasel turned to look, more than half of the room were lying motionless on the ground, tendrils of magic draining away into the umbrella.

"What the-?" the man suddenly took on a more bug-eyed expression. "What did you do?"

"I opened an umbrella indoors," Emily quipped, flashing the man a forced grin that came off as more of a grimace. Come on, Mr Wallis, where are you?

"Stop!" Weasel snapped. The amulet flared out in a blue pulse, and all the controlled bodies froze in place. "Who are you?" he glared at Emily.

"I've come to stop you," Emily said bravely, feeling none of the courage she projected.

"Hah!" Weasel let out a short bark of laughter. "Shows what you know, sweetheart."

Emily's flesh crawled.

"See this pedestal?" Weasel tapped a finger against the stone.

Emily did not think it was possible to miss it, even if she tried. It, after all, was quite an eyesore and for lack of a better word, ugly.

"You can't stop what's already put in motion, darling," Weasel smiled nastily. "You are much too late to stop me from taking over the city. All the pieces are in place, all the Vittles are in place, and all that's left is for this amulet to do its magic."

Emily looked blankly at him. "I have no idea what you are talking about. What the deuce are vittles?"

"The drug," Weasel explained, looking a little confused at Emily's lacklustre reaction. "Vittles is name for the drug. I've been adding it to the city's water supply throughout the week." Weasel smiled diabolically, "All by itself, it is harmless, but once imbued with the magic of this amulet- Are you even listening to me?"

Emily shook her head, freeing her mind from pondering what she had done to deserve dealing with the criminally insane. "I beg your pardon?"

"I am about to unveil the most dastardly plan this city has ever seen," Weasel stamped his foot, "and you do not even have the decency to listen to me?! And here I thought Magicians were supposed to be well-mannered!"

"Oh," Emily smiled brightly, fighting back the sudden realisation that, yes, she was indeed talking to a lunatic, "I'm afraid that is where you are mistaken. I'm the Magician's assistant."

"Why, you little harlot-" Weasel started towards Emily himself, only to be stopped in his path by a new voice joining the fray.

"I believe you are overreacting," Wallis stood casually next to the pedestal. "A Magician's assistant is a perfectly respectable occupation."

"You!" Weasel shrieked. "Do not touch that amulet!"

If the warning had come from anyone else, Wallis might have listened. Instead, his fingers closed around the amulet, and he found, much to his unpleasant surprise, that perhaps he should have taken heed of Weasel's warning. Wallis cried out in pain as an arc of what appeared to be electricity shot out of the amulet and curled around his body, relentlessly zapping even as the man stubbornly held on and dropped to his knees.

"Mr Wallis!" Emily shouted in alarm, starting forwards and was immediately stopped by the onslaught of blue auras from the remaining half of the ghouls. Ten agonising seconds later, Emily stumbled to her feet, just in time to duck out of the way when Weasel swung a knife at her.

"You've- ruined- everything!" Weasel punctuated each word with a swipe. Emily stumbled back, barely avoiding each one, until she found herself backed up against the dusty wall. She'd dropped the umbrella at some point in her journey to avoid the knife. Emily caught sight of the umbrella lying a few metres away, and by the time she looked back at Weasel, she only had time to reach out and grasp Weasel's wrists as the man bore down on her. Arms shaking with the strain, Emily could only watch as the point of the knife hovered ever closer to her face.

"Not so cocky now, are you?" Weasel leered maliciously at Emily. "Where's your clever comments now?"

Emily was hardly listening to the man, seeing as she was busy concentrating on not being impaled between the eyes. It would be unsightly and, not to mention, lethal.

The knife closed in, and Emily thought back to a particular lesson she'd learned as Eleanor. It was not truly a lesson, and more of a word of advice offered to her by her etiquette tutor after young Eleanor had asked one too many questions on what to do should she be assaulted.

Madame Denbigh had sniffed imperiously and stated that had Eleanor managed to land herself in such an unsavoury situation, then perhaps her unruly charge deserved to be attacked. Then, she'd added in an undertone, that there was in fact something Eleanor could do under such a situation.

Especially if the attacker was male.

Emily threw her knee up and into the Achille's heel of all men.

Weasel squeaked and doubled over, dropping the knife with a clatter. Pausing only long enough to kick the knife into the shadows, Emily darted towards her umbrella, with the intent of brandishing it as a weapon.

She did not make it the entire way, and was knocked to the floor from behind as the full weight of Weasel slammed into her. Emily hit the ground with a muffled 'oof', and all the air was knocked out of her lungs. She did not have time to do anything more than roll onto her back and draw in half a breath of air before she realised Weasel's hands had closed around her throat and were starting to squeeze.

I'm going to die. She realised. I'm going to die in a dusty old catacomb at the hands of a drug smuggler.

The indignity of such a demise – although it was probably an improvement from dropping dead at an altar – galvanised Emily into action instead of simply lying back and accepting her fate. If Weasel wanted her to die, then she was going to put up a fight.

Emily struggled, hands reaching up to claw at Weasel, but the man held on, fingers closing with bruising force against her neck. Emily could feel light-headedness starting to settle in, and her vision twisted dangerously, threatening to snap into darkness-

The pressure on her throat suddenly lessened, and Emily gasped, coughing and gulping in mouthfuls of air desperately even as she sat up groggily, dimly aware that someone had come to her rescue.

A hand gripped her shoulder, and Emily was on the verge of striking out when a familiar voice stopped her in her tracks. "Miss Greene?" Wallis sat her up, propping her against the wall. "Are you alright?"

Emily tried to wheeze out an answer, and only succeeded in starting another coughing fit.

"Sorry," Wallis muttered, "just concentrate on breathing. I'll be back in a moment."

Emily nodded, eyes still closed, and leaned her spinning head back against the wall. When she felt that the spinning had slowed somewhat, she opened her eyes cautiously, and her gaze fell upon the crumpled and unconscious form of Weasel, who, judging by his appearance, had taken a blow to the head.

Blunt trauma. Heh. Emily broke off that particular train of thought. She wasn't fond of the idea of letting out hysterical giggles, not when her throat was in such agony.

Her gaze drifted past Weasel to the rest of the room, where several of the bodies were starting to stand up, and Emily relaxed when she recognised the constable uniforms the people were wearing. Wallis was making his way through the crowd, checking on each constable as quickly as he could, even though Emily noted the man was moving a bit stiffly.

The amulet, Emily remembered, eyes widening as she tried to stand, then quickly regretted her actions when the room began to spin again. Wallis reached her before she could fall flat on her face.

"Miss Greene?"

Emily blinked woozily, and found herself staring into a concerned pair of blue eyes. "Yes?" she rasped, waving away Wallis' outstretched hand.

"You sound horrible," Wallis remarked, a sardonic edge lacing his words.

Emily responded in kind. "Thank you."