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"C'mon Vic, wake up," Shaper said, shaking his friend. "You're freaking the hell out of me." Victor groaned and cracked murky brown-brown eyes to Shaper.

"Don't ever call me that again."

"Okay, never collapse because it starts raining again," the rizen offered by way of a deal.

"I didn't collapse because of that," the wiry young man said, stripping his gloves off.

"Then why'd you fall over?" Angel rubbed his forehead, and gritted his teeth.

"I don't know. There was this smell, and a pressure on the inside of my head."

"Has this ever happened before?"

"Uh..." Victor rubbed his head again, showing just a touch of fangs. "I don't know... I think so."

"Do you think something's wrong with you?" Shaper asked, eyebrows tweaking. If something started to go wrong with the way Victor was put together, he had no idea what he'd do - since two people knew how the supernatural investigator was made, him and his mother. And his mother was definitely on the missing in action if not dead list.

"Back off, asshole," Victor growled harshly. "I see we made it to shelter."

Taking his cue from the shorter man's surly behavior, Shaper snorted. "No thanks to you."

"Well how does it feel to actually do something right for a change?" Yeah, Victor was well on his way to being normal again.

The next morning, the rain stopped, and they forced the warped barn door open. Shading his eyes with his hand while the other rummaged in his pocket for sunglasses, Victor frowned. Shaper shoved Damyew's nose out of his hair, and picked sleep stuff out of his eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know. Something about this area feels wrong."

"You and your feelings," mocked Shaper. "You're not going to fall over again, are you?"

In answer Victor brought his elbow back, causing the rizen to double over.

"Wasn't planning on it, no." He lit up a clove, and puffed smoke into the cool calm air.

There was something familiar about this flavor of discomfort. He wasn't quite sure what it was though. He moved out of the doorway, flipping his shades into place.

"Where you going?" Shaper asked.

"I'm having a quick look around. Most barns don't stand out of sight of the house they're attached to."

"I dunno, Victor. This barn's in pretty rough shape, the house might be down already."

Victor didn't hear him, focused on deep gouges on the side of the barn. It looked like there had been folk designs painted there once, as was the normal style in this area, as far as Victor knew. But the paint had been scoured away by time and rain, and it looked like some giant cat had been using it as a scratching post.

"Victor?"

"What?" He turned, flipping his hair over his shoulder. It was getting long again. He should get it trimmed, or just do it himself. Second thought it could wait till he found a town. The only pair of scissors he had were in his sewing kit - fine for mending and cutting say, bandages, but it wouldn't make his hair look any more groomed.

"Did you hear me?"

"No. Should I have?"

"I don't get any respect from you, do I?"

"Should you?"

Shaper sighed deeply. Suddenly a noise behind them made them both turn. Less than a yard away, on a slight rise was a large brindled dog. It was looking at them calmly, not barking like it would have if they'd been in his territory, but regarding them with the quiet kind of interest a human would.

But it wasn't that that sent Victor's hand for his gun. It was the deep black eyes that were turned on them, without pupil or iris. As Victor drew, the dog grinned, displaying a mouth of ivory fangs, then turned and loped away. Without thinking further, the dark haired man rushed after it.

"Victor what are you doing!?!"

Victor topped he rise and disappeared. Shaper heard the familiar sound of Victor's voice. "Oh shit." And then nothing.

"Wake up," Victor groaned to himself, and shifted his head. Dirt trickled down the back of his neck.

"Are you going to sleep all day Victor?" came a teasing, soft voice. He opened his eyes and took a deep breath in the same instant, and almost threw up.

"Don't breathe so deep," the voice suggested from beyond the glow of what, after a moment resolved itself into a lantern. He brushed dirt out of his eyes and looked up. Far above him was a tiny bluish dot that might just be a hole.

"Damn."

"You sure do swear a lot." The lantern moved a little to display the little girl he'd spoken with the night before.

"What?" he said still a little blurry from the drop.

"Follow me," she instructed and turned away from him, walking slowly into the surrounding darkness. After a moment of thought, he did. After all, it was pretty obvious he wasn't getting back out the way he came in.

"I'm not following him down that," Shaper said firmly, after listening to the pebble he'd thrown hit bottom almost a full minute after he'd tossed it. He wondered how that pit had gotten so deep. When Victor had first disappeared downwards, Shaper assumed he'd found the foundation to the house the barn belonged to, but further investigation made him doubt that. So he was stuck with a horse for his only companion. The thought of what Amy would say if... no when she showed up was giving him a headache. With this kind of shit going on, the vampire would probably be there shortly after dark. And then he'd have to explain how he lost her boyfriend.

They'd been walking through low dark tunnels for hours, it seemed. The earth roof was just above his head.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Shhh," the little girl prompted.

"And what was with that dog?"

"Why should I know?" she asked him, eyes shaded beneath her bangs.

"Because you can't be what you seem."

"I assure you, I'm everything I seem to be," she replied primly, dark skirts swishing.

"And what is that smell?"

"Just wait," she hissed. In mere moments they came to a cavern, whose edges were too far for Victor to see, even though the lantern brightened, giving him a good view of what was around them. Not that he wanted to see it.

Skeletons, half human, half wolven - as Victor's gray eyes flicked from one to another, he had no trouble identifying what had happened here. He moved over to get a closer look at one of the skulls and recoiled as a slimy slug-snake thing crawled out of one of the eye sockets and down the spine.

"This is the place where the garou of the plains met their downfall," came the girl's voice from behind him. "Since that time it has been ruled by the wyrm's minions. This has become a breeding pit for its creatures, and no other garou shall come to this land for fear or ignorance."

"But..." Victor turned to find her, but the girl had disappeared again, leaving her lantern on the floor of the tunnel they'd entered by. "Damn," he swore. "What am I going to do now?" A slug like the one on the skeleton nudged his boot, and he responded by bringing his boot heel down on it. "Yuck."

"Shaper..." came a voice. The rizen looked up, trying to figure out who was calling his name.

"Shaper..."

He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. At the fringes of his vision was a low figure - it took him a second, but then he managed to focus on what it was. It was the dog that Victor had chased. Having seen what happened before he didn't chase after it. He wasn't sure that what had happened to Victor was connected to this beast, but well, those black eyes were freaking the hell out of him. It bared those ivory chompers at him, and Shaper got a chill down his back.

"Shaper..."

"This is not my day..."

Victor raised the lantern, and looked around another corner, hoping this one would bring a breath of fresh air. There was nothing but more bones, and strange, twisted, and fortunately small creatures. At this point he had no idea how long he'd been in this underground cavern, and his ankles hurt.

"Ugh." Victor groaned, rubbing a still grimy glove over his face. "I'm starting to sound like Shaper."

"Victor..." called a voice in the distance of the cavern.

"Who's there?" he challenged.

"Angel..." the voice called

"Where are you?" Something about the voice was familiar, and yet it drove splinters of shivers down his spine.

"Shelly..." came the voice once more. Victor ran towards where he thought it was. It was hard to tell with all the echoes. After a moment, his boot splashed down into a puddle, but the voice called his name again, with a bit of lilt to the end of it - it knew he was coming.

He kept going, and the water got deeper, splashing up his legs as he ran.

Suddenly he stumbled over something, most likely one of the skeletons and plunged into the water. He swore as the lantern bobbed on the surface of the water, just out of his reach, then sunk and extinguished.

"I'm getting too old for this," he moaned, water dripping off every part of him as he pulled himself out of the mess on the floor. At least underneath the water there was stone - he knew because his front felt like one big bruise - not mud, which was some small comfort. Actually considering how sore he felt, he wasn't sure why that was a comfort. Probably because he felt less could live in water than in mud. Of course, he knew better than that. He sat up, and drew his legs under him. At least his pockets were closed. He could get a clove before trying to find his way out of this monstrous maze. In the after image of his lighter's flash, he saw a black dog.

Shaper drummed his fingers on his thigh and dug in the dirt with his other hand. Damyew had taken a few steps outside the barn, and hadn't wandered any further, so he wouldn't be using the horse to find Victor today. The sun was starting to set already and it had been just after dawn when Victor had fallen down that hole. And that voice. The dog had disappeared after he ignored it for an hour or so, but the voice stayed behind. So he sat with his back to the barn, where a bright design had once been painted, and watched crows fly over the fields in the distance. Of many things he could do, he couldn't fly like that, not even with his mask. He sighed.

"Hey there," a voice called. Out of the fields to his right came a young woman in overalls and a frayed work shirt. She had thick black hair, and sparkling green eyes. Shaper had a weakness for green eyes. It must be because he was from Vampruim where green eyes were so rare.

"Uh hi," he said brilliantly. She smiled at him and he melted. God, she was sexy.

Damyew looked at the rizen in disgust and wandered back into the barn. The woman sauntered past Shaper and over to a pallet of wood lying on ground. He hadn't realized what it was until she flipped part up and pulled on a rope, revealing it to be a well cover. She splashed water on her face and neck, and Shaper watched in appreciation. Those green eyes sparkled at him over a shapely shoulder. He was enthralled, and didn't ask himself why such a pretty girl was out in the middle of nowhere, by herself.

If there was just some light in this cavern... Victor had found his way to the wall, and was leaning against it. He didn't really want to move anymore, not after all the slimy things that he'd touched, and the bones he'd crushed in finding the wall.

"Blacker than the devil's ass," he muttered to himself. Deep breaths through his mouth, the air tasted bad, but at least he didn't have to deal with that smell. Even his cloves couldn't cut it. He took a breath filtered through the clove, but that didn't help either. Suddenly, he felt a cool breath of air to one side, and he groped at the wall till he found the entrance to a tunnel.

"Please don't let this be the one I came in," he muttered, and forged ahead.

Both remarkably soon, and not soon enough, he burst from behind a sheltering curtain of vines, in a dimming twilight forest. He turned his nose gratefully to the quickening wind. It was sweet and cool in comparison to the stink he'd been soaked in. Still was. He frowned down at his ruined clothes, and sodden boots.

"Yuck," he groaned. Getting his bearings, he headed back to where he thought the barn he'd spent the last night in was.