Spliced

They walked as one group until they reached floor where the most recent body had been found.

“So, groups?” Falco started. “Shall we have one girl in each team? Cat, Zeph, Sirius, you guys form one group. Kass, Wolf, you guys come with me.”

“Why? You think girls are weaker?” Cat objected.

“I just...” but Falco couldn’t think of a response Cat would accept.

Kass just rolled her eyes. Luckily she was standing behind Cat or she might have had a smart comment thrown her way.

“Kass can go with Sirius and Zeph,” Cat stated. “Falco, Wolf, you follow me”. Before anyone could suggest an alternative arrangement or make a point that there was still one girl per team Cat had stalked off down the corridor. Wolf and Falco had no choice but to follow.

“Well, why don’t we check out these doors?” Sirius gestured to a nearby door, as the others disappeared around the corner. “See if any are unlocked.”

“Sure,” Kass shrugged.

Zephyr gave a nod.

They followed Sirius to the grey door.

Zephyr reached for the handle first.“It’s locked. Maybe I should run back upstairs and get Mark to come down and open it.”

“Mmm, maybe not” Sirius said. “It’s probably locked to keep us out and we shouldn’t split up any more than we already are.”

Zephyr nodded remembering the reasoning for the group sizes.

“Or to keep something in,” Kass said so quietly that Zephyr wasn’t quite sure he heard her right.

“What?” he asked.

Kass shrugged. “Just a thought.” She gave a reassuring smile. But what she had said gave Zephyr the chills.

“Maybe we should try downstairs” Sirius suggested.

“Downstairs?” Kass and Zephyr repeated simultaneously.

Sirius gave a nod to confirm, missing their shared tone of alarm. “And let the others search this floor.”

Kass thought for a moment. “I guess.”

“Okay sure, but aren’t there more likely to be creatures down there?” Zephyr asked not quite sure about venturing too far down.

“Isn’t that what we’re looking for?” Sirius asked in what might have been a teasing tone, but it was hard to tell with him.

Kass gave a smile. “Maybe we were hoping the others would stumble across them first.”

Sirius returned her smile and shrugged. “Mark said we’d be fine in groups of three and it’s probably better we encounter them first rather than the others, just given the power distribution. I shouldn’t have let Cat pick the groups.”

“He said mostly,” Zephyr replied but they were already headed towards the elevator.

“I would think any monster would be too afraid to pick a fight with Cat.” Kass remarked with a smile.

Sirius returned her smile then added, “Yeah but we’ve got a strongarm, a telekinetic, and a quickfoot. They’ve got a dreamwalker, a flyer who’s afraid of heights, and well a werewolf’s not too bad...”

“At least they can all fight,” Kass replied.

“We can fight,” Sirius replied with a frown, then he realised who she was talking about and he added, “or run” with a grin at Zephyr. Sirius never liked to tease too much though so he didn’t leave it there. More seriously, he added, “Running for help fast is actually pretty useful.” Then he glanced nervously at Kass. He knew she could fight. He'd seen her and Cat practicing, still though, he'd never seen her fight anyone much bigger than herself. It was hard to believe she'd stand a fair chance. If Amanda had taught him anything over they years though, it was that small didn't equal weak, especially when magic came into play.

Kass might look small and dress like, well pretty much like you’d expect a lawyer to dress, but she was fast and she knew how to use someone’s weight against them. Sure, Cat, Falco, Wolf, and Sirius were all better fighters but Kass could hold her own. More so if magic was involved. She just needed to stop being so afraid of using it.

Zephyr raised both eyebrows in acknowledgement and gave a nod. He had no misunderstandings about his abilities and role. He was perfectly fine with being the one who would run for help. He would fight if he had to but sometimes getting help was just as important as standing one’s ground. Others could fight better and he was fast so that was what he did when it was needed.

Meanwhile Cat, Falco, and Wolf were walking along the corridor. It was extremely long and had multiple doors distributed along either wall. All of these doors were brown and all of them were locked.

“Why are they all locked?” Cat asked to no one in particular.

“Probably because they don’t want us seeing what’s inside them,” Falco suggested.

“Thank you captain obvious,” Cat replied. She sauntered along the corridor then added under her breath “This is a waste of time.”

“Let’s just see where this corridor leads and forget about the doors,” Falco said ignoring Cat’s sarcasm.

Cat gave a nod.

Wolf tried a couple more doors before following Cat and Falco further down the corridor.

Sirius, Kass, and Zephyr piled into the elevator. Before anyone could push the sequence of buttons to take them to the lower floor the elevator shuddered and started to move on its own accord. Kass took a half step backwards and glanced around wide eyed. Zephyr froze and met her eyes with a similar worried look. No one could tell what Sirius was thinking. When the elevator finally stopped they piled out.

“Weird” Kass mouthed to Zephyr. He nodded in agreement.

They found themselves standing in a square concrete room. The room was completely empty. A large archway lay in front of them. Beyond the archway a few steps led down to the beginning of a short hallway. The hallway branched 90 degrees both left and right and there were no doors that they could see. The light was dim and gave an unnerving flicker.

Without a word Sirius walked forward. Half reassured by Sirius’s confidence, half not wanting to be left in a smaller group, Kass and Zephyr followed closely behind. Sirius reached the junction and for no particular reason he took the left corridor. A few metres on, their chosen corridor swung right. Several paces beyond that they reached another junction. Again Sirius took the left. They kept walking through three more junctions. Each time Sirius took the left. Eventually they came across a black door situated in the right hand wall of the corridor. Sirius absently tried the handle and was surprised to find it open.

The door swung inward. A horrific smell hit them in the face. Kass covered her mouth and nose with both hands. Zephyr gagged and then pulled his shirt up over half his face. Sirius just furrowed his brow. He took a deep breath outside the room and then pushed forward into it. He reached out to the right and fumbled in the dark trying to find a light only half expecting to find one. He was surprised when his hand landed on a switch and a moment later the room lit up in blinking white light. They were met with a gruesome sight. The room was filled with cow carcasses, all dangling from meat hooks attached to the ceiling. They swung silently, front hooves pointing to the brown stained floor.

For a moment no one moved. They all stood just a little stunned.

“What the hell?” Zephyr commented.

“Why isn’t it frozen?” Kass wondered out loud.

“That’s your first question?” Zephyr asked.

Against better judgement they walked a few steps into the room. Kass and Zephyr stopped a metre or two in. Sirius kept going.

“Sirius maybe we should...” Kass glanced back at the door. She wasn’t as keen as he was to explore this particular room.

Sirius didn’t reply so Kass followed him. Zephyr, not wanting to be left behind also followed.

They had gotten about half way across when something moved in the shadows. They all froze. Moments later a huge wolf-like creature barrelled past them off to the side. It was headed towards the open door. It didn’t seem to notice them. It wasn’t until it had fled out the door that Kass realised she’d been holding her breath.

“That looked like a werewolf,” Sirius commented.

Kass gave a sigh of relief. “Let’s get out of here.”

Then she noticed that Sirius was grinning like a fool.

“What are you so happy about?” she asked.

“It’s just a werewolf” Sirius explained. “Shouldn’t be too hard to catch.”

“Just a werewolf!” Zephyr repeated looking at Sirius like he was crazy.

Sirius nodded.

“Wait,” Kass frowned. “You think that’s the creature that’s been killing everyone?”

He frowned. “Why not? You don’t?”

Kass shook her head. “No. It’s just, that body we saw. It looked like it had been though a blender. Werewolves don’t usually spit their food out. Plus if it was just a werewolf don’t you think they would have caught it by now?”

Sirius looked thoughtful. “That still doesn’t explain what it was doing down here,” Sirius replied.

“Maybe that’s what all the meat’s for” Kass replied looking around the room. “Explains why it’s not cold in here.” She groaned, “and we just let it out.”

“Well they did leave the door unlocked” Zephyr observed. “This raises a couple of questions though, why would they be keeping a Werewolf here anyway? Assuming they were keeping a Werewolf in here why didn’t it just go out the unlocked door? And isn’t this a bit much meat for just one Werewolf?”

“Well it probably stayed for the meat and maybe the door locks from the inside,” Sirius replied.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Kass suggested.

Sirius nodded.

Somehow they managed to find their way back to the elevator without getting lost or running into their new furry friend.

Upstairs, Cat, Falco, and Wolf had reached a T-junction with two corridors branching left and right. Both ended abruptly with double doors. The ones to the left were made of a black metal. The ones to the right stood in stark contrast, finely constructed with opaque glass. They weren’t surprised to find both doors locked. Cat stared at the glass doors intently as if she might conjure some magic that would bust them open. Eventually she seemed to give up. She turned around and started walking back down the corridor. Wolf ignored her and took a closer step towards the black door. There was something engraved on the wall.

“Hey Cat,” Wolf called. “Come back here.”

“What?” she asked turning around but not taking any steps in either direction. She sounded a tad exasperated.

“There’s some kind of inscription engraved into the wall here.”

Cat approached the door. Her look of impatience replaced with a look of curiosity.

“Where?”

“Here.” Wolf pointed.

Cat and Falco both peered at the words written on the wall.

“What does it say?” Cat asked.

“I’m not certain . . .” Wolf replied “but I think it says ‘Beware All Who Enter the Hall of the Dead.’”

“The Hall of the Dead?” Cat repeated.

Wolf glanced back at them, “Don’t you know the legend?”

Cat raised an eyebrow in question. Falco shook his head.

“Well, legend tells of a hallway, linked with the old world. It was built around a specific Splice hole... you know about Splice holes?”

Falco and Cat nodded.

Wolf continued, “Like the one we saw yesterday, the one this place is built around. Well one of them was altered slightly, or so the legend goes. Some say the hallway connects to the world of the dead as well as the old world. That it essentially forms an in-between. That is what this one appears to be.”

Cat snorted. Wolf just gave her a serious look.

A moment later Cat frowned then a small smile tugged at her lips. “You mean we could access the spirit world?”

Wolf signed “It’s just a rumour.”

“Why would you want to go to Limbo? Assuming it's even real?” Falco asked, using its more popular name. “Why would anyone?”

“To see people they’ve lost,” Wolf answered “To bring them back, among other things.”

“It would make it easier to resurrect those bodies upstairs,” Cat mused.

Wolf nodded. Then he added, “I’m not even sure this is it though. Like I said, it’s just a legend.” He trailed off, thinking. A moment later he started talking again. “The door looks new but the wall and the inscription, they look older, the whole end of the corridor does.”

“So it is it?” Cat asked.

“I don’t know, a lot of people don’t think Splice Holes are real. I thought this was just a legend. There’s a lot less evidence about it and I’m no archaeologist.” Wolf replied.

“Assuming it is how do you think they found it, buried so deep?” Falco asked.

“There are old maps with suggested locations of Splice Holes. I’ve got one in my library and I knew this was a possibility before we got here. That said, there are a bunch of fakes maps too. The giant fucking hole was more of a hint. Of course, we may all be wrong. It could just be a regular cave. And who knows, maybe the early settlers just left that engraving behind to fuck with us. A red herring of sorts. They didn’t always do the sanest things. I mean, they did split a world into two and then largely vanished.”

“Not that insane.” Falco remarked. “They made this world to protect witches from humans, and then they probably took a much needed retirement. Makes sense to me. And the Splice holes are supposed to let witch’s born on the other side through.”

“That and so the worldjumpers can get us quality human movies,” Cat added sarcastically. Then before either of them could respond she added, “What do you think these guys are doing in this place?”

“Studying it maybe, hopefully,” Wolf replied, “but we should go find the others, tell them what we’ve found. And you do know worldjumpers don’t need Splice holes, they’re for other types of witches.”

“Also what’s wrong with the movies here?” Falco added.

Cat shrugged at Wolf, raised one eyebrow at Falco, and started walking back down the hall again.

Falco paused and looked around the corridor.

“What are you looking for?” Wolf asked him.

“The cameras,” Falco replied “I haven’t seen any.”

Wolf pointed to the corner. The device was so small it took Falco a few seconds to see it, even with Wolf’s direction.

Falco gave a nod when he finally registered it. “How did you notice that?” he asked Wolf.

Wolf just gave a smile and followed Cat down the corridor.

Falco gave the camera a salute, just in case Amanda was watching, and followed along after Wolf.

Up in the computer room Amanda was cross-legged on an office chair in front of a large screen. One of Wolf’s books on magical creatures lay open in her lap. She had the views from Falco’s corridor up on her screen. There were, however no cameras on the lower levels that she could seem to find so she’d lost sight of Sirius’s group a while ago. She had been studying the enormous book and just glancing at the screen every minute or so until about 10 minutes ago when Mark had been called away. Ever since then she’d been trying to search their system for information. She smiled when she saw Falco’s salute but only let it distract her momentarily. She didn’t know how long Mark would be gone and he’d explicitly instructed her to stick to watching the cameras only. But so far she hadn’t found anything except password protected files. She considered writing a quick program to brute force the system but she didn’t really expect it would work. They likely limited how fast a new password could be tried. Maybe they didn’t but in all honesty it had been years since Amanda had last written any decent code. Things had changed and she’d forgotten most of the syntaxes. Sirius thought she was good at programming but that was only because he wasn’t good with computers himself. Her 15 year old son probably knew more than her these days. Or Indi, who did it for a living. Indi would be useful to have right now.

Behind her the door opened. Amanda’s fingers dove for the alt tab keys. Not quite fast enough. She was lucky though, as it was Indi, and not Mark who entered through the door.

“Hey,” Indi said, her smile growing wider as she caught a glimpse of what Amanda had been doing. Indi shut the door behind her, grabbed the chair next to Amanda and sat down.

“Hey, how are you feeling?”

“I’m alright” Indi replied pushing her glasses further onto her nose. Her eyes looked a little tired though. She leaned forward. “What are you doing?”

“Searching their system,” Amanda replied sheepishly. Indi was the real computer expert. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she admitted.

“Mind if I try?” Indi offered eagerly.

“Go for it.” Amanda shifted out of the way. “I wanted to see if they had any information on what they do in this place, see if it could shed some light on what creature they’ve possibly got running around. Mark won’t tell me what they do here. They really aren’t very helpful.”

“They probably want to keep it a secret it in case we blab. Do you think Mark even knows?” Indi asked as she familiarised herself with their system.

“Maybe, maybe not” Amanda frowned, she hadn’t considered the possibility that he might not know. “Either way he’s not talking.”

Indi nodded then pulled a USB stick out of her pocket and plugged it into the port on the computer. “I’m surprised they didn’t glue the ports.”

Amanda laughed. “They password protected the files, and there’s no internet.”

As a program started running on the screen Indi grinned and poked her tongue out between her teeth. “Didn’t disable autorun though.”

Amanda smiled. “I thought you might have a pre-ready program. I am surprised they didn’t take it off you though.”

“Hid it in my shoe.” Indi replied still grinning ear from ear.

They sat back in silence watching a purple rabbit wearing a white top hat digging a hole on the screen.

Amanda nodded at the rabbit. “Eating up some valuable processes there aren’t you?”

Indi shrugged. “The animation makes it more fun. This would be better with my laptop though. Or an internet connection. Then I could send the files back to look at later.”

“If they have an internet connection out here it’s probably really slow.” Amanda frowned. “You brought your whole wardrobe and not your laptop?”

“I didn’t bring my whole wardrobe,” Indi replied in mock indignance, “and of course I bought my laptop, I just didn’t think they’d take it off me.”

Amanda snorted. “Can you really blame them? I mean you’re probably more dangerous with a computer than Cat is with a gun.”

Indi grinned then added a few moments later with a laugh, “or a taser. Poor Mark. And not really true. You don’t need a hacker when you can just point a gun at someone and demand the password.”

“Mmm, but this is a little more subtle and less likely to get us escorted out.”

“I can’t believe he let her keep that gun.”

“He probably thought it was safer than arguing with her,” Amanda replied. “No one dare get between Cathryn and her guns,” she added putting on a posh voice.

Indi giggled. “Careful, you don’t want to summon her.”

Amanda snorted.

Indi widened her eyes and made a spooky face “Hey you never know.”

“Hah.” Amanda laughed.

The door opened.

“Shit!” Indi swore softly as she yanked the USB out. She groaned when she saw it was only Falco followed by Cat and Wolf. “Dammit now I have to start all over again.”

“Nice to see you too,” Falco replied light-heartedly.

“Sorry” Indi replied “I was just in the middle of breaking into their system.”

Falco nodded. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine” Indi replied her smile drooping a bit. She didn’t want to be reminded about her fainting spell.

“Did you find anything?” Cat asked.

Indi shook her head. “Not yet.”

“We did,” Cat replied.

“Same here,” Kass said as she entered through the door behind them, followed by Sirius and Zephyr.

Greetings were exchanged and then Amanda gestured that somebody should continue.

“We found a werewolf loose on one of the lower floors.” Zephyr stated.

“A werewolf?” Amanda repeated, her eyebrows raising in surprise.

Zephyr nodded.

“Seriously?” Indi adjusted her glasses.

“Yeah,” Zephyr replied while Kass and Sirius nodded in agreement.

Cat had one eyebrow raised in thought.

“Which floor was this?” Amanda asked. “I couldn’t follow you on the cameras after you went into the elevator.”

“The bottom one, it was really weird. It was in some kind of meat room,” Sirius replied. “I think we accidently let it out.”

“They shouldn’t be keeping a Werewolf locked up here anyway.” Wolf growled.

“Maybe it was an out of control one.” Indi suggested.

“It doesn’t matter” Wolf replied.

Amanda nodded. “Well there’s a reason they called us and not the army.”

“What else do you think they’re hiding?” Wolf asked.

Amanda shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“We weren’t technically supposed to go in any rooms.” Falco observed.

“Like you guys didn’t try any,” Amanda gave him a knowing look. She had been watching their floor at least.

Falco shrugged. “That was Cat and Wolf. I just think if they’re hiring us to be discreet maybe we should respect their privacy a little.”

“Respect the guys who lock up a Werewolf?” Wolf grumbled.

“If they didn’t want anyone looking they wouldn’t make it so easy to get in.” Indi added with a glance to the computer screen where her program was running again.

Falco narrowed his eyes at the screen and then at her.

Indi grinned playfully back at him.

“Who’s side are you on?” he teased.

Indi poked her tongue out at him.

“You guys want to get a room?” Cat quipped.

Falco opened his mouth to reply but Amanda spoke first. “Come on, we’ve got some work to do.”

Falco sighed then stood up straight. “Aye aye Captain!” he gave her his best salute.

Amanda tried to remain serious but he looked so silly that she folded and had to glance away to keep from laughing.

It was hard to be mad at Falco for too long. He was full of too much fun. He reminded Amanda of the sort of kid who would have snuck a frog into his teacher’s desk. Indeed Falco had once let a frog loose in his English class much to the horror of his English teacher Mrs Bibbit. ‘Bibbit’ Falco had later joked ‘ribbit ribbit’. The incident had earned him a week’s detention but Falco had told everyone it was worth it.

“Did you want to hear what we found?” Cat asked.

“Yeah?” Amanda looked up.

“What’d you find?” Indi chirped, her question directed more at Falco than Cat.

It was Wolf however, who answered first. “What we suspect is the entrance to the Hall of the Dead.”

Amanda’s eyebrows knotted in confusion. Sirius didn’t blink. Everyone else started talking all at once.

“The entrance to what?” Zephyr asked.

“The hall of the dead?” Kass repeated “I thought that was just a legend.”

“What is it?” Indi asked, excited at the possibility of new information.

“Okay hold on. Quiet!” Amanda held up a hand. Everyone stopped chatting. She directed her question at Wolf. “What’s the Hall of the Dead?”

“It’s basically a crossover point between here and the spirit world,” Wolf explained.

“Rumour or fact?”

“Rumour. It’s supposed to be built around a Splice hole. Supposedly namons guard its gates.”

“You didn’t mention namons before,” Cat complained.

Of all the creatures in the world, there were only really two that Cat feared. Namons, and her father. No one had ever seen a namon in the light. They were creatures of darkness, with more limbs than necessary and a giant body like a fluid. Descriptions of them were rare. Sightings of namons didn’t usually result in survivors to relay that kind of information. Cat had caught a glimpse of one once as a child, or at least she thought she had, but it had slid back into the darkness so fast she couldn’t really be sure what she had seen. It had been in her wanderings as a dreamwalker before she’d realised how dangerous the dream world could be. She still dreamwalked but now she was careful. The night she’d seen the namon she’d been woken by her father dragging her out of bed, yelling at her for waking the whole house up with her screaming. He’d dragged her out into the hallway, slammed her against the wall, and raised his hand. There he had stopped, one of the few times he’d managed some self-restraint. He’d left his daughter slumped on the wooden floors as he’d returned to the master bedroom where his wife cowered in the doorway, wanting to, but too afraid to stand up to him. Once the coast was clear an 8 year old Cat had dashed into her brother’s room and snuck in under the covers. He gave her his old bear to hold and there she drifted off to sleep, namon never quite forgotten.

“Well they shouldn’t be too hard to kill” Cat stated with as much false bravado as she could muster and hopefully recovering fast enough that no one noticed her initial reaction.

Zephyr eyed her closely. He hadn’t missed that flash of fear in Cat’s eyes and it was so out of place that it terrified him slightly.

“You think it’s a namon leaving the corpses?” Amanda asked.

“It’s not unlikely” Falco replied. “They are known for causing electrical malfunctions.”

“And for being extremely territorial,” Kass added.

“They must have known about it,” Indi commented.

“Not necessarily,” Falco replied.

“Doesn’t matter,” Cat said, getting impatient “Our job is to kill it so let’s do that. We know what it is now.”

“You’re not curious about what they do here?” Indi asked.

“No,” Cat replied, “and if you are, maybe you shouldn’t be in this line of work. That’s the kind of thinking that gets you killed.”

“Oh, I thought the saying was curiosity killed the Cat,” Indi teased.

Cat actually appeared impressed with the comeback and the corner of her mouth curled up in a half smile.

“How do we kill a namon?” Zephyr asked.

Cat gave Amanda a knowing look. “Fire,” she said then frowned as she noticed the computer screen change. “What are you guys doing?”

Indi spun around. “Oh it’s done. Just gathering data,” she replied to Cat with a smile.

“Did you save any files or just passwords? Can we go through that now?” Amanda asked Indi as she pulled the USB out. “You don’t have your laptop.”

Indi’s pursed her lips. She’d almost forgotten about her laptop being confiscated. She moved to plug it back in but just at that moment the door to the room opened and Tanya walked in. Indi sat back up straight, hiding the USB before Tanya could see it.

“Have you guys seen Mark?” Tanya asked. “Everyone seems to have vanished.”

“Literally vanished?” Falco asked, concern tainting his voice.

“Oh, no,” Tanya laughed. “I just mean . . . I’m sure they’re off doing something.”

Falco nodded.

“He just left before these guys got back. I guess that was a while ago now. I’m not sure where he went,” Amanda replied. “Is there a problem?”

“No, no it can wait,” she trailed off.

The silence was interrupted by Cat’s stomach growling.

“Lunchtime?” Cat suggested.

“You didn’t eat breakfast.” Amanda reminded her.

“Oh I almost forgot” Indi handed her an apple.

“Thanks,” Cat replied bemused.

Zephyr checked his watch. “It is quarter to midday.”

“Already?” Amanda seemed surprised. She shrugged. “Alright, I guess lunch is not a bad idea.”

“You might as well take a break until I can find Mark,” Tanya suggested.

“Oh I’m sure we can handle things without him,” Amanda replied, “but lunch sounds good.”

“I’m starving,” Zephyr commented.

“Yeah I could use some more bacon,” Falco agreed.

Tanya gave them a smile then stepped back to let them out of the room. There hadn’t been much extra space with all of them inside.

They all piled out past two strange men in suits who entered the computer room once they’d left. Once in they closed the door.

Amanda glanced at the men and then shot Sirius a questioning look. He shrugged and shook his head.

“You want to join us for lunch?” Amanda asked Tanya.

“Sure,” Tanya replied and they all headed back to the kitchen, Cat chewing on the apple as they went.