Tumultuous Boundary pt. 1

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!!"

Alex ducked as a scaled, slimy, and abnormally shaped duck roared as it flew directly at her. She sliced it in half with a quick gust of wind and then screeched as it exploded into a ball of guck trailing foul smelling guts onto her legs and shoes.

She opened her mouth, looked left and right at the twins and then exploded into a furious tirade as she pointed ahead, "I want to know what the ACTUAL fuck is going on here! Do you see that?"

"And the fucking duck roared! Since when do ducks roar? And why did it have scales? Was that shit already dead too! Fuck fuck fuck, what is happening in this stupid ASS world! It's ending isn't it?"

She angrily rubbed dirt on her shoes as the twins watched helplessly. She wasn't wrong, after Violet had helped rescue them they had stayed inside her fortress for some time, and after an adjustment period Violet had put them to work. Thinking back on it, it felt like meeting her for the first time: fast words, minimal guidance, and a don't fuck this up vibe.

— — —

The three of them had looked at her perplexed, and Tom had voiced, "but what if we decide to leave? Or tell people about you and Kill? You trust us?"

Violet had laughed, actually laughed in their faces, "you won't find your way back here unless I want you too, and I won't want you too unless you complete the task I'm setting for you. What's trust got to do with this?"

She had shot them a dangerous grin, thrown a highlighted map at Ted and opened the front door for them. It was their first time being allowed out since they had arrived and after a moment of silence they had walked through the door only to have their mouths drop open as they emerged on the backside of crowded Starbucks in Milwaukee.

No sign of Violet's fortress in any direction, only the crowded streets of a shopping complex, in the lower community.

Ted had walked to a bench and sat down holding his head and looking quite pale as he swiveled his head around, "what is she?" He had mumbled.

Alex groaned as she sat next to him, "thirty-thousand steps ahead of us is what she is. Not to mention acting weirder than usual, and have you noticed how protective Kieren is behaving? He won't even let us near her."

She too held her head and rubbed it anxiously, "Where the shit are we anyway, and what does she want us to do?"

Tom opened the map —opting to keep silent on Alex's observations that he too had noticed and then made a connection, one that had serious implications — crinkled his eyebrows and looked at them tiredly, "she highlighted a basement six blocks from here, wrote 'kill everything, trust me everything, and then come back.'"

"Wut?"

Tom handed the map to Alex, "that's all it says Alex, I don't know!"

They had argued amongst themselves for about ten minutes before finally conceding that they were murderers after all and they should at least see what was in said highlighted basement. They were in the lower community, so it couldn't possibly be that bad.

So, they had trudged along in uneasy silence until they arrived at the front door of a pristine white and blue home in a rich neighborhood. "This can't be right?" Ted took the map again and was about to suggest they turn around when the front door was opened with a loud slam, "Tell me you're here about the basement!"

A man in his early forties with bright blue eyes, a receding hairline, and a wobbly chin stared at them in dismay, "please help, we can't take it anymore. We will sell the house if you can't get rid of it."

"It?" Alex asked quietly, clearly surprised by the man's panic.

"Yes!!! It!! I'm tired! Do you have any idea what it's like? My neighbors don't believe me. My girlfriend, she thinks it's haunted, she took out cat and won't come home. They said, they all say I must have offended a high Ruenen lord. But I didn't! It just showed up, and it looks like my grandmother!" The man yanked on his hair and looked around dramatically, "they said she can fix it, which one of you is Her? Can you fix it? I can't do this anymore, she keeps whispering to me in my sleep, but she never leaves the basement, I.. I.. they said SHE can help, so help!!

"We're her associates." Tom said quickly holding out a steadying hand while making a mental note to find out how normal people knew about Violet, "we uhh, take care of the smaller issues, please lead the way."

The three had exchanged cautionary glances before following the man through a locked door and down a flight of stairs to another boarded up door where an eerie rattling noise mixed with sloshing could be heard.

The clearly stressed out man let out a loud "Eep" then ran back upstairs on trembling feet.

The three had summoned their weapons before opening the door and much like leaving Violet's domain felt themselves being sucked inside, only to an impossibility, as they now stood knee deep in a rotting swamp.

"What." -Tom

"The." - Ted

"FUCK." - Alex

They had ultimately found the source of the sound, another impossibility, a real live/dead zombie: a talking, walking, biting, and attacking woman with a withered broken skull that rattled as she attempted to speak to them in breathy whispers, whispers that seemed to know that they were also grieving the dead.

With heightened goosebumps the three had spent the better half of ten minutes running circles around the creature as they got past the fact that they had been sent to kill something that was already dead, in a hundred mile swamp, within a thirty foot basement.

They had formulated a plan, covered their noses to help with the stench, and attacked.

Thirty minutes later the three had found themselves shell shocked, standing covered in grime in a clean and comfortable basement with absolutely no sign of the swamp that once was other than the glowing runed eyeball protruding from Ted's twin sword.

Deaf to the man's gratitude they had exited his home heads exploding with questions, and begun walking back toward the shopping center, ignoring the disgusted glances thrown their way.

Wondering how the hell a Starbucks was going to let them in, let alone get them back to Violet, Alex had taken out the map again only to see new writing on the backside, a very sarcastic comment, 'place stink here to return.'

With filthy fingers Alex had rubbed the eyeball onto the parchment only to find themselves in the foyer of Violet's expansive fortress where Jace stood drinking a smoothie and covering his nose, "You three reek."

Unable to even formulate the words to satiate the questions in their minds the three had disappeared into their rooms for much needed showers as they awaited an explanation.

Violet had arrived almost four hours later, — closely followed by Kieren, who still radiated that terribly powerful energy —and smirked in their direction.

"Welcome to the club, you may still be useful."

No explanation, no celebration, just more assignments, each becoming weirder and harder than the last.

— — —

Tom killed another duck as he listened to Alex's rant. She was right, this was not normal, and true when you compared roaring scaled ducks to the zombie, well then the ducks weren't that bad. The problem was, they weren't on a assignment, they were out in the open, in L.A., looking for lunch and that something in the distance was very very wrong.

The earth rattled again and the three continued to demolish ducks as they watched the sky to the east, or more accurately as they watched an enormous ominous cloud that was growing, changing, multiplying, spreading acidic ash, and radiating a vile energy.

A flash or red from within the cloud made them pause as a ear splitting shriek echoed for hundreds of miles from within the gloom.

The ducks stopped attacking and faced the cloud, seeming to wait expectantly.

Utter silence.

Then it started.

Screams, from every direction.

The three balked and held onto each other as a terrible earthquake began to rattle the city, the twins jumping into action to steady as much of the earth beneath them as buildings began to topple.

The screams rose to an all out clamor as a clawed grey hand tore a hole in the cloud, and from within amassing for miles, what could only be described as demons began to descend.