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When Laura learned that the captive students were being kept under the old Lustig Theatre, Carmilla wasn’t surprised. Because of course they were. Even if it weren’t its own perfect storm of catacombs, impassable tunnels, putrid smells and personalise torture chambers, that pit would still hold the psychic residue of a hundred years of her mother’s violent rituals. And like calls to like.
And that assumed that her mother wasn’t somehow involved in all of this, behind the scenes and pulling the strings. They was no proof, not yet, but this latest round of oppression and violence had the distinct taste of mother’s games to it. And her mother loved tradition.
But Laura loved to play the hero. At least, that was the conclusion Carmilla had had to draw when, months after their own narrow escape, Laura had come to her with a proposal on how they could locate and rescue at least a few of the trapped students. Some of them would be alive, she was sure of it.
And Carmilla was all too aware of how much the coup on campus had affected her; despite her best efforts she could never quite seem to forget Laura’s sleepless nights, her tears, the way her skin had stretched across her cheekbones too tightly, and worst, the way her eyes had gone vacant and empty when she sat and thought for too long. Laura had always called her the broody one, but after Vordenberg’s death and the seizure of the campus, Carmilla thought Laura had lost the ability to do anything else. She couldn’t let it go.
And so maybe she’d been a little bit glad when Laura had at least come up with a plan. If Laura was planning, it meant she’d been maintaining a conscious state long enough to engage with reality. It meant she was trying to assess their situation, trying to look forward to the future, and not living in a past full of regrets. It meant she was planning to get up in the mornings.
Carmilla was glad about it right up until she actually heard the plan, which turned out to be batshit insane and possibly the worst plan in the entire history of time, and on reflection, exactly the kind of tripe she should have expected to arise from Laura’s disturbed and guilty state.
But she hadn’t said that. No, that had been more along the lines of,
“What exactly do you think you’re going to achieve by getting yourself killed?”
Laura had looked vaguely wounded by that - a look that Carmilla was becoming far too familiar with - and had deflated a little before she’d shot back with,
“No one else is going to get killed! All that’s going to happen is they’re going to snatch me up and stash me with the other students, and then I’ll be able to talk to you and tell you exactly where we are. I’m the best possible bait, the only person they want more than me is you, but you need to be on the outside so that you can come get us out. Then we’ll have more intel from the students, plus a symbolic victory against Theo and his henchmen.”
“Symbolic victory my ass,” was Carmilla’s less than eloquent response. And, “How exactly are you planning to talk to me or anyone if you’re being held by those lackwits? My hearing is excellent, but it isn’t going to work across a few kilometres and through a few walls, just FYI.”
That had been when the mad scientist had piped up. They’d been as bad as Laura in their own way, prone to wander off and talk to the walls and their hands, but that was something Carmilla cared about less.
“Actually, that’s where I come in.”
The red-headed stepchild had apparently come up with a means of implanting a speaker and earpiece directly into the skin above Laura’s ear, so that she could both hear and talk to them at a distance. Carmilla wondered briefly how they’d found the inspiration, time or materials to learn to do this, but decided quickly that neither mattered, nor did she want to know.
“I got the idea from Spooks!” Lafontaine had announced proudly, but Carmilla had quickly run roughshod over them with,
“And I don’t care, because that still doesn’t address the key problem that they’ll kill you.”
Laura had shrugged, the boatneck of her shirt billowing loosely around her collarbone and showing off the angular scar that still tracked across her chest.
“I don’t think so, they’d rather make use of me. And even if they wanted to, I’d have you listening in. Hopefully planning on saving me.”
Carmilla brought her fingers to the bridge of her nose, pinching it and closing her eyes. She’d spent three hundred years thinking that vampires didn’t get headaches, only to be proven wrong by one Laura Hollis. She dropped her hand.
“I am not going to save you, because you are not going to go,” she said flatly. Laura started to protest, but Carmilla rode straight over her. “No. Absolutely no. I am all for working out what the hell is going on with that godforsaken campus, and I don’t even object to getting some of the plebs out. But we do not have the resources to fight them in any way, shape, or form - and I refer to their shapes and forms, remember that - and you are not going in there with half of a plan to collect five teenagers and a symbolic goddamned victory!”
Laura and Lafontaine had exchanged glances during her rant, but neither had interrupted. Lafontaine had looked down and away, while Laura had half extended a hand to Carmilla before remembering herself and letting it drop.
“We don’t have a better plan,” she said softly. “We don’t know enough to come up with one, and we can’t learn anything new by sitting down here and watching video feeds.”
“Then I guess those kids are going to have to sit there a while longer.” Carmilla told her, and Laura had flushed before looking away, averting her eyes and declining to argue further.
She had remained subdued for the rest of the evening. She was coherent, which was its own small victory, but she had been resistant to Carmilla’s attempts to engage or talk with her. Fair enough, she supposed, Laura had had a plan that had actually given her some illusion of hope, and she’d shot it down. Laura was entitled to be unhappy, and Carmilla had given her space for the evening, hoping that she’d work through it and come back to talk about a better plan.
She really should have remembered how well forbidding things had gone over for Danny.
The ceilings of the cave complex under the Lustig were higher than she remembered. It had been decades since she’d spent any time down here, but in her memory the tunnels were cramped and chilly, the damp air a perpetual presence of reaching, clammy tendrils that seemed to crawl into her clothes and skin and throat.
Now, the air was damp, but the tunnels and caverns reached far overhead, all but invisible to the human eye in the poor light. Then, even in her isolation, she’d seemed surrounded by noise and movement, ever present motion just beyond the reach of her cell, but now the only sound was of gentle air movement just stirring around corners and the far off drip of water.
She shuddered, huddling against the cavern wall, and flipped the switch on her earpiece. She was finally underground far enough that the dirt and stone shouldn’t interfere with its function, but still the first thing she heard was the dull static buzz that had been present at ground level. It buzzed unpleasantly in her ear before settling into an occasional static-y crackle.
She cleared her throat. “Cupcake?”
The mad scientist had assured her repeatedly that they’d tested the gear out above ground, that all she’d need to do was speak in a regular tone and Laura would hear her loud and clear. They’d given her a demonstration, talking her through the use and the progress of their plan as she’d made her way through the Library and across the campus, but neither of them had been able to pick up anything from Laura. Which they’d expected, since they’d known from the beginning of this mad plan that the students were down here, but it was less than reassuring regardless.
The static crackled in her ear, hissing and irregular, and she scratched at her leather wrist cuffs like it could scrape away the itch of the sound. Briefly, she contemplated trying to reach LaFontaine again, but her connection to them had gone wavy and unpredictable once she’d gone past the anglerfish’s crater. And it wasn’t as though they’d be able to help.
“Laura?” She tried again.
The static sighed through its rhythmless pattern, and she picked at her cuff again. Then -
“Carm?”
She closed her eyes, shocked by her own sudden relief. Her response came out hollow and high pitched, not at all like herself.
“Thank God, I thought I was going to have to threaten your TARDIS mug to get a response.”
Laura scoffed, a low sound, and even here, in a damp and shitty cavern, Carmilla smiled at the familiarity of it. “I had to move away from the others, the conditions are pretty bad and I think one of the women is trying to trade information for more food.”
“Ugh, of course you’d lock yourself in with people who’re actually cooperating with the enemy.”
Laura sighed, and when she spoke Carmilla could hear her frustration. “Can we just - not, for once? Yes, things are shitty and these people are miserable and some of them are bargaining to try and make things less bad. You of all people should be able to understand that.”
Carmilla cleared her throat, glancing down as though Laura could see the submission. “All right, cupcake, you’ve made your point. Do you want to give me some directions now, or shall we talk comparative morality a little longer?”
“Well, where are you now? Give me some landmarks.” She paused. “And did Laf give you the thing?”
“The Lodestone? Yeah.” She unconsciously hiked the knapsack carrying it a little higher, balancing it between her shoulderblades. “Thing’s shiny, and they said it works, but it weighs a ton.”
“I’m sure that’s very difficult for a mighty vampire like you. Just tell me where you are so I can explain how to find us.”
Carmilla couldn’t believe how much she’d missed that bossy tone. A month ago it would have driven her all but insane, and now it inspired only gratitude, because if Laura was telling her what to do, then she was awake and aware and possessed of her perhaps deluded but entire capabilities. She’d never been so pleased to be told what to do.
“I’m in the great cavern. The northernmost part of the cave network, closest to the library tunnels.”
Laura hummed. “You came most of the way through the library?”
“Yeah. So, great cavern. High ceilings, damp floors, just beyond the anglerfish. Sound familiar?”
“Uh-huh, so you want to put the anglerfish on your left and go past it and then there’s two entrances down the end of the cavern, can you see those?”
Carmilla surveyed the cavern for movement. Seeing none, she pushed away from the wall and followed Laura’s directions, walking the long axis of the cavern until she could see the entrances Laura had spoken about.
“Yeah, so there’s a little barred door on the far left and then a bigger arch in the eastmost point. I’m guessing I want that one?”
“Yeeeeah, but it’s the only place I saw anyone moving around down here, so keep an eye out. Maybe try to be quick?”
“That’d be easier if you told me where I was going next, cupcake.”
“Yeah, course! So once you’re through the entrance you go on straight for a couple hundred meters, and there’s torches for most of it and doors going off like it’s Gringott’s but then those start thinning out and the place gets… well, wetter, I guess. The ceilings are lower and then there’s a doorway that opens onto stairs going down, on the right this time.”
Carmilla pictured it in her head, still hanging back from the archway. If there were lights and people in there, she didn’t want to give them a chance to see her before she could possibly avoid it. She could dispose of most guards, but why risk it, especially when Laura could hear and would worry?
“So the stairs are to the south? More or less?” She asked, checking her mental map.
Laura audibly hesitated. “I’m not great with compass directions,” she admitted.
“Of course not.” Carmilla muttered. Aloud, she said, “So two hundred meters down the main corridor until it starts getting dark and gross, then take the stairs on the right that look like they go down to hell. Am I about on target?”
“That’s it.” Laura confirmed.
“Alright, I’ll catch up with you in the stairs then.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. No one had entered or exited the archway while she’d been talking with Laura, so it seemed likely she’d caught a quiet period. Still, she braced herself and set off running at full speed, on her toes and propelling herself forward in the most silent and speedy vampiric tradition.
The corridor sped past at warp speed, the pinpricks of low burning torches and the silhouettes of open doors flashing past her. She caught no signs of life, and if anyone had been there, she’d have seemed only a fast moving and shapeless blur unless she’d actually bolted into them.
When the roof started to lower as Laura had described, she slowed. The tunnel continued into the distance, beginning to twist and curve, but the stairs were exactly as she’d described, stony and damp and hellish. She slipped into the stairway, planning on going down until the next exit point and stopping to talk there, but the stairs simply ended on the next level, leaving her in the comparative open.
She looked around for cover, and finding none, retreated halfway back up the stairs where she’d at least have a chance to see someone coming from either level. From the higher perspective, she had a better view of the lower cave system, and it was with a sinking feeling that she called Laura back.
“Laura? I’m here.”
It took longer this time for Laura to respond. When she did, she was half whispering.
“Sorry, that girl is… never mind, I’m here now.”
“I’m on the lower level. Laura, is something happening?”
She hesitated again, and Carmilla was beginning to hate that silence. “There’s noises in the corridors outside the cells. We think maybe they’re moving people.”
Now she’d said that, Carmilla could hear something too. Not nearby, not yet, but definitely there were a lot of moving feet and beating hearts nearby. And broadscale movement in an underground, illegal prison, well that was never a good sign. She’d seen that before.
“Tell me where you are before they drag you all somewhere even more depraved,” she demanded.
Laura laughed, a short shock of despairing sound, then smothered it. “Carm, the way I came, that’s where they all are now.”
“That doesn’t matter, I can come through them if I have to.”
“Two days ago you were happy to leave all these people here, Carm. Now you want to fight?”
Carmilla clenched her fist, clutching it against the wall. “For god’s sakes, Laura. I’m not here for them. I’m not about to fight anyone for them.”
Silence greeted her words, and she looked down again to what she could see of the lower tunnels. Low ceilings, cramped quarters and damp air. Exactly as she remembered.
“You said you’re in the cells,” Carmilla said. “You’re in the cells, and there’s movement the way you came. Was that a wider corridor, with low ceilings? Or was it cold?”
Laura sniffed over the radio, a wet sound. “It wasn’t cold. Or it wasn’t any colder than anywhere else down here.”
“Okay. Okay, so I know where you are. How many people are in your cell?”
There was a pause. “About a dozen.”
That made sense. The cold cells were further down, beginning to cut into the bedrock, and they were smaller. Only about a dozen people would fit in one of those.
“Alright, okay. The mad one said the Lodestone can handle up to fifty, so that’s, we can handle that. And I know where you are, I can come and find you.”
Laura sniffed again. She sounded sick, even with the bare hours she’d been trapped down here, and Carmilla wasn’t even surprised. The damp down here could get into anything.
But when she spoke her tone was clear, even as she backstepped and rambled.
“Carm you don’t…” She broke off, and even over the crackling radio and the far off drip, Carmilla could hear the deep breath she took before going on. “Carm, I know you didn’t want to do this and that I, I pretty much manipulated you by coming down here. Because I knew you’d come for me, and I know that that wasn’t fair. But I didn’t think they’d be, I didn’t think anyone would be coming and this isn’t what I wanted and you didn’t sign up for this and I just, I don’t want you to have to fight anyone.”
Carmilla swayed on her feet, pulled off balance by the Lodestone and by Laura. But when she regained her feet, she was furious.
“Oh goddamnit Laura. Now you change your mind? Now? It wasn’t enough to see the danger from a foxhole, you had to go dig yourself right into it before you decide actually it’s all too big and scary?” She waved an angry hand, purposeless with the lack of audience, but unable to hold it still. “Now you change your mind?”
The earpiece crackled an endless wave of silence before Laura finally spoke up. “You don’t have to come, Carm. You don’t have to save me.”
She actually snarled at that, her fangs beginning their extension without her consent. “I am coming to get you, Laura. I can do that. Try not to get abducted before I can sneak down there.”
Carmilla started down the stairs again, checking both ways before she descended to the lower floor, and took the corridor heading south. Always moving away from the main cavern and Silas; Maman had preferred to keep her prisoners as far from the main action as she possibly could.
The earpiece buzzed in her ear again, and she went to switch it off, but the static faded back into Laura’s voice.
“… can do this.” There was an audible breath before she added, “I love you, Carmilla.”
She held her breath, she couldn’t deal with this. Not right now, not declarations of love in the midst of some kind of fucking spygames. She slid against the wall, ducking her head to look around the next corner, and then picked up the pace when she found the coast was clear.
“Don’t let them take you anywhere, creampuff. If they come for you, make a distraction, fight them off. Delay. I’ll be there soon.”
The path to the cold cells was depressingly familiar. She could still hear the hum of far off movement, of heavy footsteps travelling together, and she looped to the southeast and the furthest edge of the cave system to circle around them. Laura had confirmed her expectation that any large scale movements would be happening in the wider tunnels, but she could still be unlucky and run into a lackey or two even in the less used cold tunnels. Further out from the anglerfish, and deepest underground, the remote tunnels were also the coldest, and she had no fond memories.
Circling brought her around the heartbeats she could hear, and nearer what her mother had once politely dubbed the interrogation cells. She shuddered at the whiff of blood that came from them. No matter the care that mother and her minions took her their tools and materials, they could never be wholly clean to a vampire’s senses, and she could smell blood old and new beyond their doors. But they were deliberately close to the cells, both to limit the chance of a victim’s escape and to ensure his compatriots could hear what was done to him, and now she could smell stale, dirty, living people as well as every body product that would arise from a stay of weeks within a closed cell.
Up until now, she’d been lucky. Between Laura’s advice and her own knowledge of the tunnels she had managed to choose less frequented paths. But in such close proximity to the cells, the number of tunnels decreased rapidly, and the cells themselves could only be accessed through one tunnel. At best, it would be guarded, but it was also wholly possible she was about to run into the group Laura had thought was moving students. It was time to get ready to fight.
She would have liked to become her panther, but there was the stupid knapsack and its contents to think of. Lafontaine had apparently negotiated with the Library for whole days to have it make the Lodestone for them, and she had no intention of letting a magical artefact fall into the hands of their enemies, particularly not one that would allow them to apparate within the walls of the Library. It would be immensely useful for getting Laura and the others out, but she couldn’t carry it as a panther, which meant fighting in her human form. So be it, she would be stronger than any human, and this time there had been no rumors of anything more otherworldly than vampires about. She pressed herself against the tunnel wall, listening for heartbeats ahead.
She snapped the neck of the first guard. He was a young man, just another student apart from the V that still marked his forehead, and the blood was draining from his limbs before he had even hit the floor. Carmilla didn’t stay to watch, simply swept onto the two further along the tunnel before they could respond.
The woman was faster, and she dodged the slash of the dagger Carmilla habitually kept on her belt. But her reflexes were only human, and her own knife was only halfway out of its sheath when Carmilla slammed into her and bit into her neck. She punctured her jugular on the first try and spun, holding the woman between her and the third guard, another man, as he rushed in.
He’d found time to pull his weapon out, but it caught in the clothes of the corpse when he stabbed at her, and Carmilla dropped the body and stabbed him under the arm and then in the belly. He was the slowest to die, but she had enough practice that she’d found the axillary artery, and the gut stab had been merely a means of making sure. He gurgled as he slid down and off the blade, but didn’t have the time or breath to make additional noise.
She checked the corridor, absently licking her lips free of blood, but there were no other guards immediately visible. Still, she could still hear the ruckus from earlier, and went immediately to the cell doors, checking each for occupants and stepping over the spilled blood as she went.
The first four were empty, although her nose was enough to tell her they’d had people in them recently. That morning, perhaps, probably not further back than the day before judging by the smell. The fifth cell was the last, and the only populated one.
When she put her face to the grill, it blocked out most of the light from the torches lining the corridor behind her, and she couldn’t immediately pick which of the ten or so inhabitants was Laura, although she could vaguely smell her over the stronger markers of sweat and terror marking the other prisoners. There was something else, something familiar, but she didn’t have time to work out what it was. Probably one of the previous semester’s study buddies…
She waved to the closest prisoner, a dark haired girl with her hands cuffed together before. “This is a rescue, get over here if you want to live,” she said.
The girl twitched in her surprise, but didn’t wait long enough to answer questions. She came to the front of the cell, holding her hands up to the grill, and Carmilla twisted out of the wretched knapsack and dug out the Lodestone Laf had worked so hard to obtain. She touched it to her head and her heart to activate it, then said “Bagheera”. It immediately lit up, a bright, deep pink light coming from deep inside.
Carmilla handed it to the cuffed girl. “Touch it to your forehead and it’ll - there you go,” she said, when the girl suddenly blinked out of existence, the Lodestone falling to the floor, its light now falling irregularly on the remaining prisoners within the cell. “Pass it around, touch it to your foreheads and it’ll teleport you to the Library and what passes for the resistance.”
“Why should we trust you?” challenged a boy from within the cell. From what she could see in the poor light, his face was streaked with both blood and dirt. If she had to guess, he appeared to be a prime source of the fear scent she was picking up in droves.
“You shouldn’t,” she answered flatly. “You should literally never trust anyone you just met. But right now your options are between letting that stone swipe you out of here, and sitting here til Theo’s men come down to get you. Your call.”
When the stone next dropped to the muddy floor, he was the one to pick it up. When he too disappeared, Carmilla squinted at the back of the cell, the few prisoners remaining. It was almost too dark to see, but she could pick out long hair on one of them. She wasn’t surprised Laura wasn’t among the first to apparate out of the cell, she was more of a fight to the last type, but her silence was unexpected. Probably she was embarrassed from their chat over the radio; that was usually the only thing that could shut her up.
Still, she didn’t have time to be delicate. “Cupcake, you’re next,” she called, when another candidate didn’t promptly step forward to take the stone. There was no response, and then the little long haired girl stepped forward. But her hair was far fairer than Laura’s, and from her pallor she’d been in the cells for weeks. Carmilla shook her head.
“Laura?” She called, peering past the other girl as she too used the lodestone. There were only a handful of others left, and she couldn’t pick which was Laura in the dark room. “I’m not kidding, you’re up.”
One of the remaining figures in the room was seated at the back of the room, her legs neatly crossed on the ground. She hadn’t moved as the others had disappeared from their tiny cell, but now she gathered herself, getting gracefully to her feet. She seemed familiar, but she wasn’t Laura. Carmilla reached for her earpiece, flicking the switch on. If Laura had already been moved, she’d just have to find her.
“Laura?” she asked when she’d turned the switch. She frowned when there was no response, realizing belatedly that the background hissing that had affected all of their communications so far was nowhere in evidence. She turned the switch again, listening for that confirming hiss, and then again, unsure now which setting was off and which was on. “Damnit, Laura, where’ve you got to now?”
“She isn’t here, dear. Never was.”
The voice was as familiar as those movements, and that smell. Carmilla shook her head, ignoring the other woman, turning away to concentrate solely on any sound that might be coming from her earpiece.
“Answer your fucking radio, Laura!”
The other woman laughed, coming closer to the door. Behind her, the last of the other prisoners picked up the Lodestone and held it against his face, evaporating out of the cell. She regained colour as she approached Carmilla, the light of the outside torches returning the glint of her red hair and pale skin.
“Radios don’t work down here, Carmilla. They never have, the radiation from the rocks causes too much interference.” Perry said. Her pupils were bright, seeming to hold flames, a reflection from the torches.
Carmilla jerked her head, an adamant refusal. “It was working twenty minutes ago.”
“Dearest, you know better.”
Unlike most of the others, Perry wasn’t cuffed, and she wasn’t dirty. Her dress was wrinkled, likely from where she’d sat on the floor, but when she ran her hands over it now the crumples seemed minor, irrelevant. She cocked her head, evaluating Carmilla through the door.
“She never made it here. She tried, of course, but they killed her when she was still trying to find the entrance to the lower level. Just another student, until they brought her body downstairs and that boy in charge recognised her.” She shrugged, aimless. “He seemed distressed, then, but it was all too late for the little moppet.”
Carmilla took a step back, her eyes unfocussing as she moved away. The world was bright and narrow and hot suddenly, the thick air of the dungeon pressing in on her, making her remember what it was like to need to breathe, a thing she’d forgotten since the day the last drop of her blood had drained from the new hole in her chest.
“No,” she mouthed.
“Yes,” the other woman said.
The only sound was that endless dripping that had taunted her from the moment she’d entered the caves, the monotony of its unchanging beat on the stone floors, ever constant. Unchanging. The sound, even the volume, exactly the same since she had entered the tunnels where her mother had once held her captive, the drip of that water echoing down the centuries.
She threw herself at the door, lunging for the woman inside. “NO!”
Her voice was a howl, a senseless rejection of this lie. She threw herself at the door again, smashing into it, ripping at the lock until her fingernails broke under the pressure, snarling at the refusal.
The other woman never moved, only watched her with that same dispassionate gaze, her head still tilted to the side.
“You know that won’t work, darling. It never did.”
Carmilla snarled at her without choosing to do so, her fingers starting to extend into claws, her panther just below the surface. She tore again at the door, this time raising jagged lines into the heavy wood, wood splintering below her claws.
“This time I will kill you.” She swore, her teeth elongating around the words as she shifted, but every syllable enunciated.
Her mother shrugged, looking out at her through Perry’s eyes. She stepped back away from the door now, finding the Lodestone on the floor and bringing it back with her to the front of the cell.
“No, you won’t,” she said easily, her tone never changing. She reached a hand through the grill, extending it to caress Carmilla’s face.
Carmilla seized it, dragging her arm immediately through the grill and slamming her mother’s body into the other side of the door. Her hands were claws, cutting immediately into Perry’s skin so that blood began to run over both of their skin. She growled, badly wanting that blood in her mouth, wanting to rip and tear and kill.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t.” She snarled.
Impossibly, her mother smiled, even as her face was crushed further into the metallic grill of the door. She lifted the arm Carmilla held, ever so slightly.
“Because we are bound by blood, my diamond. And because I didn’t kill her, and soon we’ll be fighting for the same thing again.”
Carmilla shook her head, still dragging cruelly on Perry’s arm. “Not ever.”
Her mother’s smile only became brighter, an ugly light in the dungeon.
“Are you sure, sweetheart? After all, they killed your precious girl, not me. And I’m going to make sure I clean every last one of them out of Silas.”
She reached through the grill with the arm Carmilla didn’t hold, the forgotten Lodestone in her other hand.
“I look forward to working together again, darling,” she said, and touched the stone to Carmilla’s forehead. She was the last thing Carmilla saw as the world greyed out around her, the dungeon fading moment by moment as it all went black.