signed_sabrina | (no subject)

Sabrina finds the book on the kitchen table.

She knows even before she's moving to open it that it's somehow from the place she only sometimes thinks of home, and she's moving toward it with the same sick feeling of compulsion that had led her to another book in the woods.

But this is not the Book of the Beast. She can see it's a book of prophecy, and with a shaking hand, she reaches for it. It feels familiar under her hands; she opens to the page marked with what looks like a page torn from a sketch book.

Before she can identify the actual content of the drawing, she knows Harvey's made it, knows his hand; when she looks a bit longer, she realizes this is her own face, but not, somehow wrong and evil and everything she's tried to pretend she's not. Trembling violently, she moves the drawing away and finds that the page beneath has an underlined passage.

She leans down to read it, and then she's falling, and she's closing her eyes with Salem's panicked yowls fading away.

Her eyes open and she's curled up on the floor, the afternoon light turned to dim twilight tones, her face wet and sticky with tears. She wants to claw at her own skin, she pushes her hands through her hair to get rid of a crown that isn't there, she screams and hits her fists against the floor.

Even Salem is gone, but as sure as she knows anything, she knows he's gone for help and she's going to have to move quickly to make sure that doesn't happen. There's no help for her here.

Her legs are unsteady, but they carry her as she grabs her bag and takes off out the door.

At the edge of town, there's a place she's always eyed with the suspicion of one who knows she'll visit, but not when. She goes to the Necropolis now, picking out a particularly large and suitably Satanic looking mausoleum.

Chalk and candles and a knife-- she has these things in her bag all the time, and she works with them now. She draws the circle, the sigils, the sacred geometry that will form her makeshift prison. Her blood charges the lines, and the trio of candles serve as a timer. When they burn themselves out, she will no longer be able to alter this trap. It's foolish to think no one else could, but she's fairly certain it will take long enough that-- that--

She doesn't know.

She just can't let herself be out there, a loaded gun, the bringer of an apocalypse, traitor to everything and everyone she loves.

Drawing her knees to her chest and hugging them tight, she tucks her face out of sight, and lets the candles burn.

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[Marcus]

Marcus is on his way back from a shift at the Home when Salem finds him by darting into the street, though at a good enough distance to give Marcus plenty of time to brake. The truck comes to a stop and he leans across to open the passenger side door, half expecting the cat to run back off toward the house. He knows better, though, because Salem isn't only a cat. Salem's much more than just Sabrina's cuddly pet, even though he meows and purrs and most often behaves like a cat.

Because every now and then he behaves like something else entirely.

He jumps up into the cab of the truck and begins to pace on the seat, so Marcus closes the door and continues the rest of the drive home. Something is wrong. He doesn't need to look at Salem to feel it and he's not surprised when they arrive back at the house and Salem goes streaking for the front door, which Marcus unlocks.

"Sabrina?" he calls, even though he knows better.

Salem has, as a rule, the run of the city if he likes it, though there's an agreement with Sabrina that he's to avoid traffic and large dogs. Neither of them are entirely certain why he can no longer access his other form, but it's one of the discussions they had when he first found his partner is this strange place.

However, Sabrina has most certainly violated one of her agreements, and so Salem makes sure Marcus sees him, and he's dealing with traffic as he gets into the truck.

And Salem is right.

There's no sign of his girl, besides the book that had caused her to fall to the floor. He jumps up, prancing around it and yowling at Marcus.

Marcus catches sight of the book, but he ignores it for now, instead going through the house room by room, calling for Sabrina as he does. Even before he's done, he knows she isn't here, but he still has to check. He has to be sure before he begins to make any sort of phone calls.

Sam might be able to track her, he thinks. But maybe Salem will work just as well. He'll have to call Charlie and then he blanks on who else.

Returning to the kitchen, he finally looks at the book, glancing at the drawing and then at the passage that's been underlined. He reads it three times, picking up the book and carrying it with him while he absently looks for the Scrabble box. As he finishes the third read through, he scatters tiles on the kitchen table and looks to Salem.

"Where did she go?"

Salem waits by the book, chirping impatiently at Marcus-- only to jump down and follow him around as he reads, keeping up a patter of irritated, upset noises. There's another absolute yowl as the Scrabble game is brought out and realization of what has to happen sets in, and only a bit of it because Sabrina was right about the letters.

His tail lashes wildly as he sniffs and pokes at the letters, complaining more quietly now, a low growl.

s-l-e-e-p

This set is nudged away and set by an o-n.

The next set is t-o and f-i-n-d m-a-r-k-s.

An expectant look up at Marcus, and a meow.

t-h-r-e

r-a-n g-o-n

h-i-d-e

Marcus can practically feel the impatience pouring off the cat as he arranges letters and waits for Marcus to read them. It takes him longer than he would like, too, scanning the letters. He works out the first two things with relative ease, but the third gives him pause and he has to scan it more than once to realize what Salem means.

"She ran," he says. "And she's hiding somewhere."

Not with Charlie, not with something of this level. He thinks if she's run from the house, she's likely run from Charlie, too, and even as Marcus takes his phone out of his pocket to call Sabrina, he knows she's not going to answer. Still, he has to try, and he paces a little, waiting, even though his call is never picked up.

"Where might she go?" he asks and he's speaking to himself as much as he is Salem. "Where... not to see Charlie. Not back to the Home. The store? Do you think she went to Leviathan?"

Edited 2019-05-19 04:01 (UTC)

Most of the impatience is tempered with the understanding that this poor mortal is trying, and that said mortal is as worried as the familiar about Sabrina.

Salem sits besides the pieces, batting them around to get rid of the words, waiting for Marcus to return, and with some similar conclusions. His tail lashes and there's a dismissive meow.

After what is clearly nearly a minute of thinking, Salem hisses and turns back to the letters.

t-h-i-n-x e-v-i-l

e-v-i-l p-l=a=s

g-r-a-v-s

"The Necropolis?" he asks, trying to remember if Sabrina has ever mentioned it to him before. Marcus would never consider it an evil place, simply a place for the dead to rest, but their experiences are very different and he's already grabbing the keys to the truck once more and heading for the door. If that's what the cat says -- an idea he's still just wrapping his head around -- then he's going to take it for what it is. If anyone here knows Sabrina best, it's Salem.

"Come on, then," he says to Salem. "We'll call Charlie on the way."

Given what he's just read in the book, Marcus isn't sure Sabrina is going to want to see him first. He's too tangled up in the ideas of God and the devil, the end of the world and trying to prevent it. Charlie will be the right choice to go to her, see what she needs. Marcus will do what he can from afar and then be there. After. When she lets him know she needs him.