undergrounds | ( april 12 | closed ) somebody's watching me

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( april 12 | closed ) somebody's watching me

"I don't think that the Benedict Cumberbatch wax figure looked like him. Not that I feel passionately about him one way or the other or anything."

Allison's glad that Nancy has suggested these tourist outings for the two of them. As a newcomer and a local, it looks like there's a lot of territory that needs exploring. Madame Tussauds being one of them. The weather seems to be clearing up for the better, feeling spring enough for Allison to leave her winter coat behind in favor of one of her leather jackets. The sun's still out by the time the museum comes to a close, guards nudging visitors out so that they can finally lock up for the night.

"I think the worst was probably the Justin Bieber one," Allison laughs with a toss of her head. "I don't need to see him shirtless like that."

Sliding a hand into the pocket of her buttoned denim skirt, she feels her heart stop for a split second. Her phone. What happened to her phone? Wordlessly, she whips around to face the green dome of the wax figure museum, hand now in her other pocket.

She can see the phone now, sitting somewhere in a restroom, atop a paper towel dispense. Stupid!

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"Oh, yeah?" Huh. Well, that's not fair is it? He already knows Nancy's name, so he shrugs and tells her, "Fun Ghoul," with an amused grin. Lord help him if either of them are familiar with Italian curse words. "And you're Nancy," he says while gesturing his phone at her. Then he does the same for Allison and states, "And you're Cinderella, 'cause you leave your shit in all the worst places."

It's at least clear that the phone in his hand isn't hers. It's in a hideous black and yellow case, with one of Party's fat puppy stickers smacked crookedly in one of the bottom corners.

"I'm s'posed to be in here, though. Workin' as security." He is a huge fucking liar, but he takes his fake-role seriously and shrugs as he takes a step to the side, motioning towards the restroom in a way that indicates they're free to go on in.

"Do you prefer Fun or Ghoul?" Nancy asks, hardly blinking at the weird name. Her favorite brother goes by The Artful Dodger so she's really not going to give him too much of a hassle about his preferred name.

Allison's new nickname gets a grin from her. It's a little appropriate. Just a little. Maybe if she knew Ghoul better, she'd signal for a fist-bump.

It's his declaration of working security that gets Nancy to raise an eyebrow. "Then where's your uniform or badge, hmm?" she asks, but takes a step around him into said restroom.

"A likely story."

Nope, that isn't her phone at all. Though - weirdly, that sticker does look familiar to her. Maybe that is just pure coincidence. Or maybe London is just that much smaller than she had initially anticipated. Allison enters the restroom first anyway, pushing the door open.

And, lo and behold, right there on top of the empty paper towel dispenser ( the museum had replaced them with hand dryers ) is Allison's phone covered in a brown leather case, with ( what else? ) the Argent fleur-de-lis on the bottom left corner. "Got it."

"Just Ghoul," he clarifies for Nancy. She'll come to learn that it's pretty fitting.

As the girls pass by and voice their skepticism, he grouchily mumbles excuses under his breath- something about plain clothes police, maybe. Doesn't matter, it's bullshit anyway. Once they disappear behind the door, he's torn between darting off and getting back to business, or waiting around for them and escorting them out. Not necessarily because he's a gentleman or anything... It's more because he'd like to have the peace of mind in knowing that they, for sure, will be gone and won't have a chance to mess him up or rat him out.

He's leaning more towards the second option when he thinks he hears noises from further inside the building. Assuming it's a staff member, he quickly reaches out to knock quietly (but insistently) on the door. God damn, he hopes that stuff about girls taking forever in the bathroom is a myth.

"Hold up," is the first thing Nancy says when Alison retrieves her phone- she'd sized up the phone and it's case earlier. The custom job and fine leather would have fetched a pretty penny if the design wasn't so easily traceable. But the phone inside, wipe it clean and that was worth something. She hates that she does it, but it's a habit. Not that she would ever dare to steal from a friend.

She jerks her thumb at one of the stalls. "Gimme a minute. It's a long tube ride." Without waiting for any objections, she slides into the stall to do her business.

No more than a minute later, she re-emerges to wash her hands. Yeah, maybe it is a little true, Ghoul.

Allison swipes through a couple of her notifications on her way to the door again, but pauses only when Nancy says something, nodding to her friend. "Of course."

Okay, it's a little true. But Allison only pauses in front of the mirror to wipe some lipstick off the corner of her mouth. And it all seems well and good save for that strange racket heard around the corner outside of the bathroom. It doesn't sound quite mechanical but it doesn't sound all that natural either.

Ghoul, maybe you'd better come inside instead.

Okay, that doesn't sound like a security guard anymore. Maybe it's like, a really fucked up Roomba on the move. God, he doesn't know. It doesn't sound like anything he's heard before, though, and he doesn't exactly trust it.

He doesn't want to lure whatever it is closer, so he chooses not to bang on the door again. He has no choice but to push it open- but only an inch or two. Only enough for his voice to carry through, which is at a harsh whisper when he says, "Guys, for real, what the fuck?" Are they even still in there? Maybe they got lost, because evidently this bathroom is a gigantic maze that is impossible to navigate quickly. "Do you hear that shit?"

His hearing is a little better than average, sure, but come on...

When the water stops, she can hear the noise. Whatever it was- it didn't sound good.

Ghoul pokes his head in, and Nancy nods, too, and signals for him to come in. It's only the two girls in here, and there was some weird noise. And judging from his reaction, probably not a good one.

"You're the one supposed to work here," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "What the heck was that?" There's a change in the air, too, that she doesn't like. Something low and pulsing. Some sort of magic. Big enough that she could feel it. Or... close enough.

She tries to give Ghoul a meaningful look. He was a wolf, maybe he could tell. But the problem here, other than the possible threat, was Allison. As far as Nancy was aware, the girl had absolutely no connection to the supernatural.

How wrong she was.

Don't worry guys, she's got it. There are holsters in her boots, it's a special, near-undetectable material that is just enough to sheathe not one but two ring daggers. Allison is at the ready the instant she hears banging on the other side of the door.

"Stand back. Whatever's out there might try to come in." It's just like her, the hero she is, to swing her knives with the blades pointing towards the ground at first. No time to explain now.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have William Shakespeare come for you? No?

Well, sorry about that guys, because that is exactly what is happening right now. Shakespeare – or the wax figure as it were – does not move fast yet, but it is still a terrifying sight.

Edited 2017-04-25 03:37 (UTC)

Okay, okay. Maybe if he had actually worked here then he could have given them a fair warning, but as things are now, he's clueless and unnerved by the feeling of wrong. He's not in tune with magic in the same way a witch would be, but he feels something for sure. Something that he doesn't like. It's a sort of dangerous buzz, like the aura of live electricity, and it makes his skin itch.

He catches Nancy's look, returning it with one of his own and a shrug before glancing at Allison- who is, apparently, on the move and giving them orders like this is just another day in the fucking neighborhood for her. The noise outside is momentarily forgotten while he notes, "You brought knives in here?" He turns to Nancy, arms spread in an incredulous manner. "Do you have knives too?!" If so, holy shit, she needs to hook him up.

Especially now that creepy-Shakespeare is on the scene. Nope. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Ghoul lets out a string of curses as he scuttles over next to Nancy... to protect her. Definitely. Because she's unarmed. Yes.

Woah. Woah. What. The hell is happening. Allison has knives? Allison has knives, okay, that's new, and you know what, Nancy would 500% call her on that but William Shakespeare is here.

Nancy's going to say what everyone is thinking. "What the fuck."

And honestly, Ghoul, she's a little offended you'd feel the need to protect her. Without much regard, she pulls up a magical barrier in front of them. It's a small wave in the air as it shimmers into existence. Allison has knives. Shakespeare is coming toward them. She can use a little bit of magic.

"What does it want?"

"What?"

Now it's Allison's turned to be stunned. Look, a young lady having Chinese ring daggers is one thing but straight up magic is another thing entirely. This is nothing like the magic of the druids, she thinks, but there is no time to think about that or question each other on whatever else they're hiding. ( Ghoul. )

Anyway. "Guess we're gonna find out," she murmurs, carefully approaching the door, still surrounded by Nancy's magic. "Can't stay in the bathroom all night. How long can you hold that, Nancy?"

What? What who's hiding? Surely not Ghoul. He's not hiding anything at all... Unless himself counts. Because he's kind of hiding behind Nancy's weird magic shield thing, despite being a god damn werewolf with enhanced-everything and a cockroach's ability to never die.

Shut up, that living wax figure thing is creepy.

Allison's asked a good question, though. He shoots Nancy a questioning look, curious about the answer as well. If she can't hold it for long, or god forbid if it can't take a lot of damage, then he might have to barrel through their walking nightmare fuel over there.

But maybe he'll get lucky and Allison will cut its legs off instead.

Nancy presses her lips together, keeping both hands out to help support the shield. "I don't know- it's big- five minutes?" She looks over at Ghoul. "Longer, maybe. Let's get the jump on it, so we don't have to find out the hard way, yeah?"

She could hear the noise, it was closer now. Louder.

"Lead the way, Allison." Because she's the one with the knives.

Maybe he'll get lucky today. Allison wouldn't mind doing a little damage to this walking creepypasta thing happening to them this evening.

The thing is, how does one defend themselves against something that isn't exactly living but isn't exactly dead? Animated wax figures isn't something that the Argent code covers, you know. But then again, she's meant to become the leader of their hunter faction so she can probably set some new ground rules as she goes on.

"I can't believe I'm going to try to stab Shakespeare," she says out loud when she pushes the door open with her elbow, just as the wax figure makes a swing at her, which she promptly ducks, using the force of the door to knock it ( him? ) backwards.

There's a snort of laughter from Ghoul at Allison's comment. Okay, the whole walking wax figure deal is wrong and creepy, but it's also kind of funny when she puts it that way.

With Fakespeare knocked back and sprawled on the ground, Ghoul's feeling a little more confident about approaching it. He slips past Allison and out of the bathroom- and also out of Nancy's shield. It's all part of his plan, though. Which is, apparently, to rush forward and jump on the figure while it's still flailing around on the floor. He lands with both feet squarely over one of Shakespeare's knees, slamming every last ounce of his body weight down on to it, clearly intending to break... whatever is inside there. Whatever, that move usually works really well on people. He'll just have to hope it also works on fakepeople too.

He quickly hops away from its reach once the damage is done, encouraging Allison and Nancy with a call of, "Get that motherfucker! He deserves it for all the Romeo and Juliet bullshit we had to put up with!"

Holy shit. Things are happening fast, and she's concentrating on keeping her shield up. The very shield which Ghoul just ran right past. She barely has time to react before she's watching him jump on to- "Oh!" she manages to say just as Ghoul lands on Shakespeare's knees.

Nancy knew what a knee-cap breaking sounded like.

That was not what this sounded like. What happened instead was the force of Ghoul's jump causing the wax to react, folding in on itself, leaving one of Shakespeare's wax legs useless.

"I like Romeo and Juliet!" Nancy finds herself saying, reaching out to pull Ghoul back into the barrier. "Allison- try his head!" that would make sense, right? Because right now, Shakespeare was trying to get back up.

Writing in iambic pentameter is difficult! But Allison doesn't have time for more quips, hurrying forward yet trying to stay within the boundaries of Nancy's shield. At least until she finds her bearings and a way in without harming Ghoul in the process.

Wax figures aren't hollow either. They are thick and have weight after they're poured into their respective molds. Stabbing the head directly seems useless, but you know what, she's going to go for it anyway.

Ruthlessly, Allison dives in and jams both knives into the eery wax eyes. And suddenly everything goes still.

"I have a feeling that isn't the only one."

Ghoul supposes Nancy's questionable taste can be forgiven, considering she's the one with the nifty shield. He follows her pulling without fuss, grimacing as Allison buries her knives in the thing's face. It was never alive in the first place (right?) and there's not even any blood, but that doesn't stop him from saying, "That's gross."

Yeah, because trying to break its kneecap isn't gross.

He really hopes Allison's gut feeling is wrong, but just in case it isn't... "You guys ready to get the fuck outta here?"

Nancy can only respond by giving Ghoul a very pointed look. It's wax. It's not that gross. There wasn't even blood, gosh. Kneecapping is worse by far.

"Yeah, let's go." But Nancy's looking the other way down the hall, her voice tight. She shifts the shield a little, and it wavers, but only for a second. "Now. Before David Beckham gets any closer."

It feels almost sacrilegious to stick your boot in Shakespeare's face as you lean over to pull your knives out of the wax, but that is what's happening right now. "Ugh." No blood – still gross, even to the seasoned young hunter here. Allison spins her knives around her middle fingers, keeping them pointed behind her with her arms straight at her sides.

Hey guys, you feel like meeting Queen Victoria? Because that's happening next, rounding the corner as you make your way towards the exit once more.

See, Nancy, it's totally gross. Majority rules.

Ghoul wastes no time in legging it away from the bathroom and towards the easiest exit (especially since he spies the other creep further down the hall, so that direction's a bust), only to find himself face to face with some menacing looking lady-figure. He doesn't take to surprises very well, much less when those surprises are giant haunted dolls, so he lets his instincts carry him.

His instincts have decided that yelling, "Fuck!" and slamming the Queen backwards is the best course of action. She goes skidding across the floor much more violently than she would if she'd been shoved by a person with normal levels of strength, but Ghoul doesn't seem to notice. He doesn't seem to notice who it is either- he's too busy shaking his hands like he's trying to fling invisible germs off them, and even goes so far as to wipe them off on one of the girls' shoulders. Whoever is closer. He doesn't give a shit. "Ugh, I fuckin' touched it."

Here's the thing: Everyone else here is American, so attacking the Queen is not a big deal. For Nancy, it's weird. This is god-damned Queen Victoria, and while she's not a cute Queen, she's still pretty big and intimidating.

With everyone moving, her shield becomes mostly useless, and she's got no choice but to power it down, and prepare to fight. Wax, she knows, melts. Which means she's got a ball of fire in one hand. Yes, Allison. You have cool knives, but she's got fire in her hand.

Nancy gives Ghoul a face when he wipes his hands off on her jacket. She'll deal with him later. She wants to make sure that the Queen is down for the count, just like Billy Shakes over there.

"I'm so going to hell," she remarks, before dropping to one knee so she can, y'know, melt the face off of the Queen. "So going to hell." She drips and burns, but she's not moving anymore. "We need to get out of here. There's got to be an emergency exit!"

Allison has acknowledged that her fate as a hunter will bring her into contact with the weird and otherworldly, but she has to laugh at the fact it looks like she has walked into two more supernatural friendships. But then again, she supposes, that is just the life of an Argent. And she's a different breed of Argent as it were.

"Cm'on, Ghoul," she groans. "It's wax."

But she's already backing away, not abandoning the other two, but in an attempt to find the best path to the exit, moving away from the main hall. Peering up at the hidden camera wedged into the crown molding, she has to inwardly chuckle – security must be picking up on some weird shit.

"Down this way. We're less likely to be caught by security there since they were moving to the lobby earlier."

If Nancy goes to hell for this, it'll at least be for an amazing reason that the rest of them will never be able to outdo. Ghoul watches her take fire to the Queen's face, very impressed the whole way through. That's pretty ballsy right there.

His attention is pulled away from her when Allison grumbles at him, and he turns to hiss back at her, "Wax is a god damn candle, these are like- possessed dolls but worse, 'cause they're life sized. You ain't allowed to judge me when they made horror movies about this kinda shit all the time." A werewolf who's creeped out by scary dolls. Who'd have thought. That's the movie they should be making, though.

He glances back at Nancy and waves her along as he begins to follow after Allison. "C'mon. You should ice the next one," he tells her. "Just shoot a giant ice spike right in its face." Okay, Ghoul, no. This doesn't need to be turned in to a game.

Actually, this is the least of all her sins, truth be told. SHe'd been raised by the devil himself, after all. No wonder fire came so naturally to her.

"Who the fuck cares," she hisses, running after Allison. There had to be emergency exits. She curses herself for not paying closer attention to the full map of the place. It was a rookie mistake; she'd been trained to know all the exits since she was three.

"Besides, can't do ice." Her powers were nowhere near as good as all that.

"We'd do best trying to stay away from the exhibits!" She warns, catching up with Allison with surprising ease, despite her short stature.

"I guess we should be glad they're not talking. Like Chucky."

Allison, why did you make that reference?

Anyway, don't think about that because she's launching herself at the nearest fire exit that is meant to lead them back to the street except it's not working. Instead, she's set off some alarms. Allison bites back a curse, clenching her jaw in frustration as she gives the door another useless shove with her shoulder before pushing herself back.

"I remember I saw another one," she yells over the piecing sound of the alarm. "We'll have to pass by the pop music section though." Let's hope this magic hasn't touched Bieber.

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( april 12 | closed ) somebody's watching me

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