damned_institute | NIGHTSHIFT 27: F-BLOCK HALLWAY

Diva heard it just fine, and threatening to leave her behind wasn't about to stop her - because really, she was always left behind, and that only meant she had to make new Chevaliers. Or punish her old ones. And it was only the very same title spoken back at her (horribly butchered) that made her pause and stop when Dean got in her way.

"You're not a Chevalier," she said. "Not yet."

That was just funny. Diva twirled around again, purposefully disobedient, and stepped back towards Sam, who was maybe even taller than Amshel. She had to look up to smile at him. Could she eat this one? She thought she could. He was softer, and sweeter, and younger, and he tasted less like iron than the other one, the brother. "I hear it!" she exclaimed, girlishly, wanting to see if his attention would waver off her again.

Games weren't over until you won, or found the prize. If it was a game, then Diva wanted to play. She loved playing.

Dean turned a dull gaze on his brother, then at the bathroom door. The hunter remained soundless, flipping his flashlight and switching it on, an orb of light slowly tracing the walls as he took full heed of the ominous noises. He didn't say anything, attempting to further sharpen his hearing in case anything else interrupted the current.

"... Yeah," he finally replied, voice still rough, but far calmer. Cautious. Concentration easily diverged from Diva, the beam of his flashlight continued its steady route athwart the point of suspicion. "... Goin' in there'd be suicide, don't y'think? But..." Oh man. This had his blood pumping. A hunt. It'd been too long. "Should we check it out? Patient might be in there. And, well," a bored smile laced his lips. "It's our job. Right?" Beat babysitting the brat.

While the echoes of discomfort made Sam tense ever so slightly at Diva's approach, he did look down, gaze settling on her without flinching away now that she was, if not properly attired, at least wearing something. His answering half-smile held a touch of relief, as though he had not been entirely sure that his senses weren't playing tricks on him. "That what you were going to look at?" he asked quietly.

Sam's gaze snapped back to Dean, and the half-smile grew and turned more than slightly wry. "There's no assurance that whatever it is wouldn't just get out and come at us when our backs were turned anyway," he replied. "We check it out, at least we know we're walking into something. I know I'd rather not have it at our back." It was, at least in part, an excuse. A hunt was familiar, more so than anything else he'd encountered in Landel's thus far.

His expression tugged into a faint frown as he looked down at Diva once more, concern written clearly across his features. She was, as far as he was concerned, the real wild card.

They sounded like those military men. The ones that went around shooting at her shadow, and other Chiropterans, and all that pointless stuff. But they weren't carrying guns, or any other weapons, so Diva found it rather entertaining that they were considering going in a strange room smelling of human blood with no protection.

Well, Diva would be fine, but she always was. Humans broke really fast.

The Chiropteran Queen wasn't stupid, however, no matter how she seemed. When it came to a public bathroom, and other things, a human girl wandering around and looking at sinks wasn't worth the effort. Now that she was thinking on it...

She looked to Dean, then up at Sam again, then back to Dean, where her gaze lingered for a moment. And finally, back up to Sam. "Who are you? Are you going to go in there? You shouldn't, you might not like it."

"Hm." Nodding at Sam, the man then found reason for muttering curses when he again, out of habit, reached about his waist, intending to feel those pearl grips slide across his palm. Waltzing in there unarmed, he'd be a walking target. It'd be of use if they were actually clued up on what they were dealing with...

So when the girl gave a somewhat abrupt warning to the younger man, Dean rotated to completely face her, mechanically flicking off the torch to deflect attention from any unwanted source.

"Diva," he said in an astonishingly soft tenor; a drift one used when speaking to a child. "What is it?" He had a brow arched, though he held an indisputable curiosity for just how much information this patient had in her grasp. Could she sense something about the scenario that they couldn't?

Sam's frown deepened, concern thickening as he peered down at Diva. For a moment his expression was almost transparent; one could all but see the wheels turning in his mind. He shook his head briefly. "What do you..." He trailed off as Dean spoke, so as not to override the question.

Noting his brother had turned fully towards them, Sam shifted enough that he could maintain a reasonably clear view of the bathroom door, or more importantly, anything entering or exiting it.

Diva just hated when she asked questions and they weren't answered!

She gave Sam a long, level look that effectively portrayed the rapid cooling of her mood, at least towards him. It was like a balloon had been popped, and she suddenly found the game disinteresting and dry. Her suddenly sharp gaze landed on Dean, at once thoroughly annoyed with being patronized.

She arched her brow right back at him.

A Diva that was not having fun meant bad things to the people around her, whether they were human or not. She didn't discriminate when she felt like getting violent, and not even a near immortal Chevalier would recover swiftly. "Look and see. I was just being nice telling you about it. I'm not going in anymore, I'm bored." She turned, crossing her arms.

The toys weren't being amusing enough.

He continued to stare at her; secrets of her past might appear the moment he glanced in another direction.

"Uh."

Dean opened his mouth, closing it in a nearly robotic manner. Narrowed eyes widening slightly, his flabbergasted expression glided over to his brother. The dumb-stricken look planted on the older man's face was enough to suggest he was now inept, thrown by the kid's sudden change in attitude.

Sam blinked once, slowly, gaze swivelling back towards the other two. He gave Dean a brief, baffled glance, one shoulder shifting in a minute shrug to indicate that he was just as lost regarding the girl's sudden shift in demeanor.

His gaze continued its sweep along to Diva, and he hesitated a moment in consideration before speaking. "We don't understand what you're warning us about. Did you see something in there? Hear something? Something before we came, something we missed?" The questions were spoken low and earnest, accompanied by a wide-eyed frankness more appropriate to the boy next door than any sort of monster hunter.

When her hair shifted the right way, Diva noticed the stuffing tangled within her dark locks; she plucked at it, murmuring idly, "I wonder if Solomon would like me talking to strangers..."

She flipped a long tress back over her shoulder, looking miraculously unbothered despite the ominous groaning of the pipes. No one usually bothered to ask her such questions, at least not expecting her to answer, and she stared at Sam's feet for a while, expression distant.

"I'm not warning you about anything," said the Chiropteran, slowly. "Hospitals are supposed to have blood. Isn't that right?" But she really was bored now, and turning her back on the two men, looked around for the door.

Solomon... Book of Solomon... No way in hell they were one and the same.

The girl was hurling riddles, and he simply didn't have the patience to handle them without complaint. He was gonna wake up in a minute, knowing the crazy-ass timing in this God-forsaken place. The whole gig was a game to these people, wasn't it? Real funny.

Suspicion she was lying through her teeth aside, the situation seemed grim. If there was blood anywhere, it was in Dean's calling to study its pattern and origin.

"... Alright." He was going in there. Someone might need his help. Screw thoughts to the contrary – whether this was a professional move or not was of no significance. They'd been taught to use their senses as tools, too, and at present it was all they had at their disposal. The flashlight in his hand turned on with a small click. "Sam, stay here with Diva while I scoot in and outta there," he rolled off like a military commandant; gaze fixed on the bathroom door as he unconsciously shuffled into sidesteps. "Back in a sec."

The hunter stood his ground, eyes doing a fleeting inspection of the doorframe - top to bottom - before he kicked it open and slipped to the other side of it with a trained swiftness.

"Dean-" Sam began in protest, then cut off, gritting his teeth as his brother vanished into the further darkness of the bathroom. "Damn it," he swore, voice pitched vicious but low enough not to carry, barely above a whisper.

He moved towards the door, angling to cut off access to it, preventing a threat from at least one front. Tempted though he was to ignore the direction in favour of not leaving Dean alone with whatever was in the bathroom, his own conscience wouldn't let him abandon Diva to the other things that might be roaming the halls.

This was far too familiar for his liking.

His skin itched, fine hairs prickling at the back of his neck. He could smell it now, the blood, thick in his nostrils and settling on the back of his tongue. It was only long familiarity with dark places and the nightmares they conjured that allowed him to banish the images that tried to spring unbidden to his mind, telling himself that he did not know what was in there, and that daydreaming would be useless.

_{[PRETEND SHE LEFT BEFORE EDWARD AND CO. CAME IN, OR THERE WOULD BE BAD THINGS. 'KAY? :O]}

Diva was already moving away when Dean made his decision to enter; by then, Diva didn't really care anymore. She touched the wall to the right of the doorway, more or less listening to the low gurgling beyond. She knew human blood didn't normally travel through human plumbing, water did that. And water came from...

There was usually a place with lots of water. And then it came through the pipes when someone turned a tap, right?

The Chiropteran was thinking ahead, thinking there had to be a place with a lot of blood to make it go around the building like that. Or something like that. Would have had to have drained a lot of bodies to get that much, but that didn't explain why it was being wasted. She stepped away from the wall, making a slow circle.

When she finally made a full 360, she paused. Then she made a beeline for the exit.

Sam bit back several choice curses, eyes narrowing in frustration as he watched Diva make her way off down the hall. "Where the hell are you going?" he hissed, fighting the urge to raise his voice - making their location even more obvious was counterproductive.

His weight shifted, indecision holding him in check for a moment before he planted his feet, grimacing to himself. It would be foolish to take off after her, but it grated on him to leave her to her own devices. Just not as much as it would grate on him to walk away before he knew what Dean had found inside.

Glaring at nothing in particular, he turned towards the bathroom door instead.

"What~? You don't sound happy."

The girl had an obvious strut, even in the ridiculous overcoat. If she felt any of the apprehension Sam did, it wasn't obvious.

"There are interesting things outside," came the final answer.

"Out-" Sam began, then trailed off, raising the hand that held his flashlight to scrub his knuckles across his eyes, as though wiping away a headache. The gesture sent weird shadows splintering across the nearby wall.

"Right. Thanks," he added, a touch inanely. He was not entirely certain his voice would carry far enough to reach her, by that point.

"Nice work, Sammy," came Dean's salutation as he crossed the threshold, careful to close the door on exit so as to prevent the slam. Idly shining his flashlight over the hallway, he could perceive Sam and Diva at a distance. At the man's side was little Rika, her tiny hand in his and her arm extended upwards thanks to the height difference.

He considered flicking the torch off, but ultimately chose to keep it on. The kid might go into a panic if all she could see was this dark willowy figure standing there – one with a grumpy face, if she had night vision. Dean didn't pay attention to Diva, simply frowning and noting she hadn't fled yet.

"Her name's Rika," he stated tersely before Sam could even question the stranger in their company. "She's new. And, uh..." Inclined to speak in murmurs with his brother, he directed the bright beam to the floor. "Blood's circulatin' through the plumbing. 'Cuz that's totally normal." He smiled dryly at the younger man.

Dean lead her out back into the hall, where two other people were waiting. Another man, and a figure that she couldn't make out in the dark. Dean quickly introduced her, which Rika took as a cue to keep quiet.

With nothing else to do, she just stood around and listened in on their conversation. They must have been here for quite some time, as the two just gave off an air of knowing what they were doing. She hoped that she would be able to learn a bit more about this place just by listening.

But if anything else, she learned that the blood indeed was not normal, even for a place like this.

Diva opened the door to the hallway and let it swing slowly open. After all, although her senses were more pronounced than a human's, she still couldn't see all that well in the dark, and she had moved out of the flashlights' glow.

Normally, the girl had every tendency to wander on her own at a whim. This time. though, she looked back and forth down the hallways before turning around and waving her hand at the others. "Come look, come look. I told you." The little human female that the man had brought out was so -

Diva fixed her gaze on Rika, and her long, blue hair.

"I love that color. You're just like a doll! How pretty."

Sam offered Rika what he hoped was a reassuring smile, though the glance he shot Dean on the heels of it was dark with solemn concern, and not a little anger. If ever there was a question of what the younger hunter might think of a child being trapped along with the rest of them, the answer was clear enough in the look. He said nothing on the subject, however, opening instead with a quiet, dry, "Next time, you get to stay with the crazy chick."

Sam glanced past the pair at the bathroom door, frowning speculatively. "It's running through the pipes?" he asked, unease colouring the request for confirmation. "Thought it smelled like a slaughterhouse when you opened the door, but that..." He trailed off with a shake of his head.

Diva's hailing caught his attention before he could spare much more thought for the possible sources of such contamination. He lifted one shoulder in a small, helpless shrug and turned about, heading down the hall to see just what had so snared the woman's interest.

"No way, man," he laughed, breaking out the customary grin. "The crazies dig you. Besides, she doesn't quite fit the description. Remember that blonde acquaintance of ours?" He was referring, of course, to Meg. Or the demon controlling her, whatever. Leaning closer to his brother, he instinctively squeezed Rika's hand as his gaze shifted to the other girl. "I'm surprised at you, Sam. Blamin' the kid when she can't help bein' how she is."

Green eyes traveled aloft, a grimace forming as a single question continued to undulate – where was the blood coming from? "Yeah. Just when you start thinkin' things couldn't get any weirder..."

Diva was fervent to lead them elsewhere. He couldn't really blame her; they'd been in the F Block for a few minutes now, and they hadn't gained leeway in their exploration. Even if a sledgehammer were in their possession, pipe surveillance would be stupid. They had to locate the source, the bloodbath itself, and Dean had a hunch...

"Rika," he quietly spoke down at the girl, as though Diva hadn't made the doll comment. His first thought was to distract the older girl from interacting with the younger one. She was messed in the head, and, frankly, Dean had the impression her erratic actions were akin in likeness to a bomb; if she suddenly lost her composure, he'd definitely feel more comfortable knowing he was in the line of fire, and no one else. "This is Sam, my brother. He's gonna take care o' you." He released her fragile hand, giving her a gentle nudge in the other man's direction. "We're all workin' together tonight, so don't worry, we won't be separating." A momentary look settled on Sam, holding a hint of warning that he should assume the duty without complaint, for Rika's sake. He swayed a little before moving toward the neglected member in their party.

"Diva, what's up?" He frowned, honestly interested. "What is it you wanna show us?"

She had thought that the others might disapprove of Dean bringing a child to them, and it looked like she was right when the other man gave her a smile and then turned to glare (she thought he was glaring, anyway) at Dean. But how could she blame them? For all intents and purposes, Rika really was a helpless child. There was no point in trying to inform them of her true age or nature, was there?

The doll comment made by the adult female actually intrigued Rika, rather than offending her. A doll? That was the first time anyone called her something like that. It seemed to be a compliment, at any rate, so she took it as one and smiled back at the older woman.

At Dean's instructions, Rika nodded again and wandered over to Sam, giving him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Mii, thank you for taking me with you. I'll do my best not to get in your way," Rika politely said, returning her attention to the woman so she knew where they were going next.

Diva didn't think a child had ever smiled right at her before, and she smiled back too before Dean's form blocked the little doll from sight. So many fun people to play with! Amshel would probably disapprove, after all, there was blood everywhere and that usually meant lots of lots of humans. And a hospital and doctor people... It was a mystery! Like one of the plays Nathan would blabber about. A good performance required mystery, intrigue, and a beautiful detective. She was not - in Nathan's taste - a pretty boy, nor terribly interested in whatever paradox Landel's offered, but the thought struck her all the same.

She looked up into Dean's face. It was difficult to pigeonhole Diva for a variety of reasons, not the least of which included her apparent lack of intelligence versus whatever truth there was to be found.

"That's really awful, thinking ill of me," said the Chiropteran. Her voice had dropped to mimic the human's exchange with his blood relation. "Are you scared of me already?" Only a game, of course. She rarely had serious conversations with her own Chevaliers, and never with humans.

She hopped back a step.

_{[continuing to LOL out in the hall (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/217123.html?page=2#comments)]}

NIGHTSHIFT 27: F-BLOCK HALLWAY

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