A Curse Upon Thee 20 (Patreon)

The assault on his door started before the sun even rose properly, the sky still the color of dirty dishwater and no rooster for a hundred miles crowing for the sun. Even with all that, the thumping against the wood door didn’t stop, Finn blinking into a pillow that smelled like old laundry detergent.

“Bwuh…” His brain barely running at twenty-percent, Finn pushed through swimming thoughts and fragmented dreams, images of black blindfolds, white hair, and a cocky girl with gun in hand already fading from his memory. He dragged himself up and out of bed, blanket wrapped around him as someone kept trying to punch a hole through his door.

“I’m… I’m…” Cold morning air bit at his bare chest as he stumbled across the room, a wide-mouthed yawn interrupting his words. “...comin’.”

One hand threw the door open, a scowl on his face matched by the person standing on the other side. Hand still raised, Emma Swan stood in the hallway, the sheriff of Storybrooke looking like she hadn’t slept since the last time the Patriots won a Super Bowl.

"Get dressed.” The scowl slipped as a yawn of her own took its place. "We got another tip."

"Lemme guess." Finn leaned against the doorframe, staring at the challenger for biggest bedhead all in red leather over a wrinkled white tee. "Anonymous?"

"What do you think?" Emma was already turning away, boots loud as they hit the scuffed floorboards. "But we’ve got reports of some noises from an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Could be nothing, could be—"

"Could be..." Finn rubbed a hand hard into his eyes, squinting against the harsh glare of the hallway bulb buzzing above Emma’s head. “Could be Kathryn.”

Emma stopped at the top of the stairs, looking back at him over her shoulder. "Yeah."

He didn’t bother even closing the door.

No point.

Spinning around, his black jeans flew off the floor and he yanked them on his legs without so much as a word. A black t-shirt found itself sliding over his head, and the red leather jacket only a few shades darker than Emma’s was zipped up tight. 

Feet shoved into red sneakers, there was no need to bother with the laces as Finn caught up to Emma before she even reached the front door of Granny’s Inn.“Shotgun!”“...Who else do you think is in this car?”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Emma’s yellow Bug was beat down all sorts of ways — down and up — even after Storybrooke’s best — and only — mechanic shop had gotten their hands on the thing. That still didn’t stop the vehicle from chewing up gravel beneath its tires, small rocks spitting against the undercarriage as Emma finally threw the thing into park at the front of a dead-end dirt road.

If the car looked bad, the house they’d pulled up to looked so much worse.

Jesus. A masterpiece in tetanus and structural failure, it looked like a set piece rejected from a slasher flick for being too stereotypical. Peeling gray paint curled off rotten siding like dead skin and front windows boarded up with long-splintered plywood did little to make it any more inviting. The front yard was no better, overgrown grass and dead brown weeds making the place a knee-high jungle of thorny brush hiding who even knew what. It was the exact kind of place that screamed nothing good has ever happened here in massive neon letters.

Emma had a hand resting on the grip of her service weapon, gun readied even before her boots even kissed the cracked pavement of the driveway.

"Stay behind me.” Her eyes were locked on the sagging front porch, Emma already stepping carefully through the overgrown grass. “And be careful.”

Finn scoffed as he kept walking, long and careless strides letting him pass Emma. “Yeah, sure.”

"Finn-”

"Emma, I’m tougher than you. I’m going first." He ignored the warning glare aimed squarely at the back of his head the same way he ignored the weeds pulling at his jeans. The bright red of his jacket was a violent splash against the overcast morning gray, not even bothering to look back as Emma hissed his name again. “Yell at me about procedure later. Hell, dock my pay for a week, y’know, if we don't find a body."

The front door was unlocked.

Of course it was. Why make it hard when you want someone to find what's inside?

Finn pushed the door in, hinges shrieking loud and high enough to make his teeth clench tight in his jaw. Yeah…. Dark as the inside was, the place managed to make up for that by doubling down in smell for what it couldn’t show. Creeping molds, rotting floorboards and… and something else fought for attention from his senses, his nose wrinkling as the hairs on the back of Finn's arms stood at attention.

There was rot, of course, but beneath all that… Finn’s eyes narrowed into the darkness, eyes adapting quickly enough. Beneath the old rot, there was something fresh.

Something recent.

Something alive, human, and tinged with the negativity of fear.

Enough of it hung around the place that it led like a blinking neon arrow straight to a heavy wooden door at the end of the hallway. Basement… Finn nodded slow. Gotta be.

"Down there.” His voice dropped to a whisper, head tilted over to the door.

She didn't even bother asking how, the woman accepting his weird radar the way he accepted her lie detector. No, Emma just pulled her heavy Maglite from her belt — the beam from it a sharp white circle — and moved past Finn to the door.

It was thick, the chain a length of heavy-gauge solid steel wrapped twice around cast iron and secured by an industrial-strength padlock that looked newer than anything else in this house by a mile. Finn didn't even bother checking his pockets for a lockpick kit he didn’t own, and he definitely didn’t waste time hunting for a stray key. 

Alright. Finn stepped up to the door, the heavy chain gripped tight in both hands as he took in a short breath. Cursed Energy surged up from his gut as he breathed out and let the familiar buzz flood down his arms, muscle and bone reinforced as his knuckles went white. 

He pulled.

Metal shrieked in protest, steel links digging tight into his palms as the lock held firm and tight for a second. 

Two.

Three.The sound echoed loud through the empty house as the chain snapped, the links raining down onto the dust-covered floorboards in a small heap. 

“Jesus…” 

Finn blinked up at Emma, the sheriff staring at the broken metal on the floor as she lowered her flashlight. 

"What?" He dropped the broken bits of padlock and shook his hands out, fingers still stinging and half-numb. "You gonna drive back to the hardware store for some bolt cutters?" Rolling his eyes, Finn yanked the basement door open.

The stairs beneath their feet creaked violently with each cautious step down, their combined weight atop the rotting wood forcing groaning complaints as they went deeper and further into the dark. Emma's flashlight cut a sharp cone through the dusty black, the beam sweeping across old cardboard boxes, a broken washing machine, and—

Oh, fuck.

A blonde woman, skinny and trembling, was curled into a tight ball in the furthest corner of the dusty concrete basement. Her hands, bound tight in front of her zip-tied tight, couldn’t do a thing to help remove the cloth gag stuffed deep in her mouth. Tears ran down eyes blown wide with fear, the woman making muffled frantic sounds the second the bright light hit her as she scrambled back against the concrete wall. 

"Kathryn." Emma was already moving, flashlight tossed over to Finn to free her hands. He caught it and held the tube of light up for Emma, his boss quickly pulling a small folding knife from her pocket. Two quick seconds later, the plastic ties were loose and Kathryn Nolan’s bruised wrists knew freedom. “It's okay. You're safe. We've got you. It's Emma."

Finn stayed on the bottom step, jaw clenched hard as he did his best to keep his eyes off the plastic bucket sitting a few feet away. Days. Kathryn had been here days in the pitch black, eating who knows what and clearly without much to keep her going, just waiting for whoever threw her down here to come back and finish the job—

Kathryn gasped, the sound wet and ragged, as the gag came off. Stale basement air filled her lungs as she coughed it out, violent hacks from the woman disturbing the dust in the space.

"Kathryn, Kathryn, I need you to stay with me okay.”“I…I-I…” Emma’s words almost seemed to pass over the other woman’s head, gentle voice not doing much to get her to focus. “Kathyrn, who did this to you? Kathryn, who took you?"

"I don't know, I—" Voice raw from screaming or crying or both, Kathryn Nolan sounded out with a rasp, the words choked up in her chest as tears cut clean tracks through her dirty face. "I don't remember. I was... I was just walking to my car, and then... and then I woke up here and it was dark and I c-"

That was all they got before sobs took over and the kidnapping victim broke down, her small frame shaking from the force of her cries. Emma didn't hesitate, one arm already wrapped around the woman's shuddering shoulders.

"It's okay. You're safe now. We're getting you out of here right now."

Convenient… Finn’s jaw set tight as his suspicions slid back to town. Real fuckin’ convenient she doesn’t remember who locked her in a box.

 – o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The hospital was almost a zoo by the time the ambulance had gotten Kathryn there.Paramedics shouted past and nurses rushed all around them, IV bags in hand as they pushed down the linoleum corridors of Storybrooke General. Sydney Glass — editor-in-chief of the town’s newspaper and another one of Regina’s flying monkeys — was already hovering by the double doors, camera flashing away.

I could… What he ‘could’ do was one of many things, and shoving that camera as far as it would go down the skinny man’s throat was up there. …nah.

Emma didn’t need the extra paperwork and, besides that,  it wasn’t like Glass was alone in his antics either. What felt like half — but was probably more like five percent — of the whole population of Storybrooke was on the verge of crowding the small waiting room to gawk at the woman everyone already thought carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

The woman in question was in no condition to be gawked at or interrogated, Kathryn Nolan dehydrated, malnourished, and nothing short of deeply deeply traumatized. Despite all that though, she was alive.

And Dr. Whale, looking unusually serious, had assured both sheriff and deputy that she'd recover. 

“...Physically, at least.”

Both Finn and Emma shot the man a look, the head doctor blinking at the dual glare from law enforcement fixed on him. “What? No offense, but I do the body, not the mind.”Hands up and palms out, Whale backed out of the room and as soon as the glass door shut behind him, both those looks turned on each other. “I guess Mary Margaret isn’t an axe murderer, huh?”Finn tilted his head at Emma’s words. “Guess not.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Story Refuses the Script  – 300 GP

Play a direct role in clearing Mary Margaret Blanchard of her charges.ROLL: Jumping Over The Sanzu River (400) [Thailand Myth/Folklore] {Benevolence}:"Reincarnation is a strange thing. Memories and bodies are locked away, emotions and promises remain only in an abstract and spiritual sense, and your soul is given a chance to grow again. Understandably, not everyone is very enthused about the ‘memories are locked away’ bit, and some great sorcerers have attempted to skip the part of reincarnation which deals with memories, the crossing of the Sanzu River in the Underworld. Some even succeed. Like these people, once per jump you will be allowed one second chance, one extra life, a 1-up if you will. You’ll be born again as normal, of course, sometime between instantly or a few days after your death, and you will retain all of your memories and knowledge, although not any powers or skills that relied on your body or any kind of spiritual modification. This does not end your chain, in case that needs be said. Of course, you can choose a normal birth, or to be born from ‘moisture’, or to simply spring up fully formed, as explained in the Origins section. Really, the choice is mostly made on the grounds of convenience. If you have time and wish for another start, you could be born normally, but if you have urgent business and don’t wish to abandon your life, being spontaneously formed would be a better choice. Of course, the demons running the Hells won’t like your shenanigans, and you shouldn’t expect this to work a second time per jump or millennia, whichever comes first."

Grimoire Points: 100