2013.07.15 - Getting Home Late

Somewhere in Gotham City, in a location not entirely removed from the homes of the 'common man', but still with space to make plain the dwelling belongs to one of higher status, there is a mansion. It is an old building, constructed in the late 1800s, and with a gothic architectural design to it that has only become more pronounced since its ownership changed and aging parts of the house were rebuilt. Three stories tall, with a veritable labyrinth of halls and passages and tunnels underneath that have been continuously added to over the course of a century, this mansion is home to Bianca Tonetti of the 'Tonetti Crime Family', and sometimes used as a headquarters for mafia meetings, 'parties', and the like.
All around the mansion are various other facilities, including stables, generators to make sure the house can sustain itself in an emergency, and so on. However, most of the land within the walls and ornate iron fence is lawn. While not ill-tended or similar, the grass nonetheless has consistently seemed rather sickly for a period of many decades. It's like the life just leeches out of it, bit by bit, and then hovers just this side of death.
It is a very peculiar phenomenon that has puzzled many gardeners over the years.
Even more puzzling, however, are the strange 'accidents' that have befallen literally hundreds of people over the century+ of the mansion's habitation. Many of the accidents have been rather lethal or potentially so. But they mostly seem to be restricted to when someone who shouldn't be there is poking around, or when someone trespasses into the basement. Accompanying the mansion's owner down there is one thing. But it has been made clear to any mafia associates permitted to enter the mansion that the basement is off-limits without such accompaniment... And that the Tonettis will not be held responsible for whatever happens to those who disobey.
Some have disobeyed regardless.
Sometimes their screams are still heard in the dead of night, the footfalls of people running for their lives and struggling against some fearsome beast can be heard in the halls, and trying to find the source leads only to empty rooms and an insistence by others that they heard nothing. Because they've been dead for a long time now, even if the trauma of their murders remains behind in a supernatural form.
This house is haunted. Didn't she tell you all that? So there you have it, boys and girls, be good little playmates and do not stray from where you belong or the thing in the basement will come to find you and drag you down into the Deep Dark and then you'll join the rest who have had the misfortune of finding out exactly what's down there -- and just how very ANGRY she gets when people who don't belong go wandering in the house that is still 'hers' regardless of who may have claimed ownership since her tragic demise.
Right now it's night time. The hour is late enough that the handfull of people who are allowed to visit know it's not safe to be up and walking around -- not that there's necessarily any visitors right now, but if there were they'd know better.
They'd damn well better know better. Getting the blood out of tapestries and carpets is not an easy matter, and it's hardly the headache that Bianca would want to deal with upon arriving home.
Standing in the shadow alongside the central staircase in the main room of the first floor, there's a little pale shape. It looks like it might be a young girl at first glance, but appearances can be deceiving. A closer look reveals it's more like a ragged white nightgown with something awful inside it. Something like a mix of living darkness and writhing rot. A pair of seething, fury-red lights hover in what might approximate a face, at about eye level. Strands of black and brown decay twist and squirm in the air around its head, almost -- but not quite -- like a cross between hair and snakes.
Mother is late.
The pale little horror is not happy about this.
The car carrying 'mother' pulls in through the gates as they're silently let open by the armed male in the guardhouse. The Tonetti Family had visitors every day, most left before nightfall. Only the very important amongst the living survived past the setting of the sun, those who were necessary, or who were protected for one reason or another (having earned the affection of one of the family or some such reason). Of course the mansion wasn't a black hole for human life, most who entered left well and whole again, despite disappearances amongst many of the 'party guests'.
But all bets were off when someone went snooping. Most of the members of the Tonetti Family weren't even related to each other, not by birth, blood, or marriage. Well, they were related by blood in a way. And they Family had one simple, simple rule about guests: if you have a heartbeat, stay out of the basement. Upstairs, tinted, sunproof windows and all, that was for the guests, with its lavish decor and comforting amenities. The vaults, sleeping chambers, and murder pits downstairs, they were for the dead alone.
And Bianca's dearest 'daughter' did such a good job of keeping it that way she didn't even have to post guards!
The car pulls up and the richly-dressed head of the Tonetti Family, who posed merely as the dilettant daughter of such, steps out in the waning moonlight. Daybreak was coming, which meant it was getting 'late' by vampire standards, and the young-looking woman in the diamond earrings and black cocktail dress offers her driver a brief smile as the door is opened for her. Like most of her servants, the driver/bodyguard/enforcer was still counted among those who drew breath. When she reaches the front door, it's opened automatically, as one of her pale-skinned 'children' welcome her home.
She thanks him, removing and handing off her shawl, then begins to remove her gloves as her dark eyes land on the stairs, and the small form hovering malevolently in their shadow. With a radiant smile as the doors close the house falls back into near-darkness, Bianca Tonetti drops down to one knee and spreads her arms wide.
"Don't look so sour, sweetie. I'm home now."
From the moment that Bianca enters the house, the spectral being that regularly makes radios that come within range of the mansion emit nothing but static and half-heard voices of things that may or may not be human whisper from the midst of such starts to settle slightly. That static-inducing crackle of something unliving in an entirely different way from the other 'dead' who dwell here fades. The air becomes less frigid. But the shadows that the ghostly girl has been standing within do not recede until said ghost hears her 'mother' speak. Just seeing her in the doorway isn't good enough. She needs to confirm that both sight and sound match.
But now the deep shadows lighten somewhat. The red glow of eyes fades to a muted yellow, and the gown-garbed girl steps forward. She doesn't need to walk. But she chooses to, because as much use as it is to have an awful little murder-ghost as your protector, sometimes even vampires like to have something that at least superficially resembles a human being as their 'family'. Part of that is acting human instead of like some unsettling creature that's just THERE every time you turn around.
Sally Tonetti, born 'Kanami Seishino', pat-pat-pats her way across the floor with her bare feet. Her hair has alreaden fallen back down into smooth, sleek, black strands. Her Japanese heritage shows through in her features, but her skin is so pale and flawless that she almost looks more like a Japanese doll than something that was once a living human being. Also, her yellow eyes with their snake-like pupils do their own part to keep the young-teen-looking ghost shaded more towards 'distinctly not human'.
"Welcome home, mother." Sally greets in a calm, placid, neutrally-pleasant tone. It's almost as though she's sleepy when she's like this. Containing her boiling emotions to the extent that they aren't exhibited very well. This is actually a good thing. Because when she exhibits emotions, they tend to be intense, and they tend to make things happen to the surroundings. Sally leans into the open arms, wrapping her own around her adoptive mother, and despite her ethereal appearance, she is quite solid. Part of the 'gift' bestowed upon her by her love for Bianca. But as Sally's arms hold firm around Bianca, the little girl sucks in a deep hissing breath through her nose that sounds like many snakes threatening at once. Without even bothering to exhale, she asks, "Were you with someone?"
She turns her head to the side, pressing her cold lips to Bianca's ear, and waiting for a response. She thinks she can smell someone -- or at least FEEL someone -- on her mother. Someone she doesn't know. She is very protective of Bianca, and she gets very JEALOUS when she isn't receiving her mother's full attention. More than one person has had a mysterious accident when they interrupted mother-daughter time. Sally can act like a real little girl. Really, she can. It's what's kept most from connecting her with the thing in the basement. But it takes time after she has become angry. Time to bottle all the rage back up. Tommorow she'll be more inclined to act like a person. Right now she's just trying to find out who may have dared to come between her and her mother, if anyone. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe there was no one.
But if there was, and they aren't important, Sally is going to make a point of hurting them.
"It is almost bed time, mother. Why did you leave me alone so long?" The anger is fading already, replaced with the closest facsimile to happiness that she has. Her mother is the only one who can do this for her. Only Bianca can make Sally feel less hateful and angry. Just by being near her, embracing her, Sally feels better.
"Yes, honey, I was." The vampire elder pets her hand through the phantom girl's dark hair. Hair that she could or could not touch only at the little girl's will. Seriously, the Addams family really had nothing on them. "And it kept me out late. I didn't mean to make you wait up, mia figlia. I got caught up at the fight and one of the safehouses afterwards."
She raises up off of her knee and runs her hand through her 'daughter's' hair again. "Why don't you come with me next time, hmm? If you're good and you've been practicing your dress appearances, you can come with me for the whole night. We'll make it a mother-daughter outting. What do you say?"
"Carlo." The young woman's voice was barely above her normal speaking quality, which was normally rather quiet and soft itself. Yet it's only a few instants before a pale-skinned, blonde male, slicked back hair, seemingly in his late twenties appears in one of the doorways, looking as dapper and well-dressed as over. "I will be putting my daughter to bed. See that we're not disturbed with any unfortunate... 'business' that needs to be taken care of."
Carlo offers a bland smile of acquiescence. "Of course, milady." He replies, a habit of address she hadn't been able to break him of in almost a hundred and fifty years. He was the sole permanent inhabitant of the mansion, aside from Sally herself, that wasn't Bianca's spawn. "I will simply put the more pressing matters in with your mail."
"Thank you." The mistress of the house gives him a tiny smile as he bows and makes his exit, as quietly and suddenly as he'd come. She places a hand on the angry ghost's shoulder and starts to guide her towards the only room on the upper floors that has stairs leading to the basement. It had other entrances, of course, just not from within the mansion. "Come on, Sally, let's get you settled down for the day. Mommy's not going anywhere else until the sun goes down, so why don't you tell me all about your day?"
The hand running through her always-perfect (except when she's angry) hair soothes her. It reminds her dimly of another time -- a time that has merged into the present within her pieced-together psyche, though she doesn't know it. She still somehow doesn't entirely understand that she's a ghost. She just accepts that she is how she is and doesn't think too hard about 'when she was alive' or even the fact that she isn't alive right now. She doesn't even really feel 'happiness' anymore. Not even when she's with her mother. There's just varying degrees of comfort, which could be likened to happiness. The main difference is the less comfortable Sally is, the shorter the life spans of the people around her tend to become.
She nods her head to Bianca. "Yes, mother. That sounds lovely." Outings can be nice sometimes. She can't go on them without the vampire who adopted her, because she can't leave the house in a corporeal form or really at all. Thus, she'd be with her mother and all would be well. Unusual circumstances sometimes have allowed her to stray beyond the confines of her site of death -- but always in spectral form and using her abilities too much has endangered her continued existence.
As she continues to have her head petted, Sally's eyes sink half-way closed like a cat's wound under the same circumstances. Even when Bianca is speaking to Carlo, or 'uncle Carlo' as he is supposed to be called by Sally, the continued attention being paid to her leaves her soothed and comforted. When the hand moves to Sally's shoulder, her eyes are wide open again and one of her pale hands finds its way around Bianca's wrist as she is guided towards the stairway into the basement.
"There was a man at the front gate shortly after noon. He wanted to interview someone. I think he was a reporter. He was told to leave. He did not and tried to move around the wall to the side gate on the north. He did not get in or touch the gate. But I think he intends to come back." Sally recites all this half-boredly in tone, as though simply listing an order of events with no real importance attached. But if the man had actually tried to trespass, the story being told would be quite different both in tone and content. And if this reporter ever does come back, he just better hope he runs into 'normal' guards instead of Sally.
There is a stark difference between 'being roughed up or maybe killed' and 'meeting a supernatural hate monster who can hurt you so bad that even the fragments of your spirit that you leave behind when she kills you -- fragments that don't-quite comprise a full ghost -- won't be able to stop screaming'. Compared to that, broken bones and a warning from mafia goons is far more preferable.
The door opens without being touched. The stairs muffle the footsteps of the vampire and her adopted daughter. Both the door and the stairs would creak and make lots of noise if someone else were going down them -- no to alert Sally, as she'd already know someone was trespassing into the basement the moment it happened. The warning is for anyone else who might happen to be nearby, so they could try to stop the trespasser before they get too deep into Sally's domain.
Sally looks up at her mother after a few minutes of not speaking as they descend into the darkened basement and to one of the secret doors that in turn leads even deeper. She then asks the same question back. "How was your day?"
"Well, next time why don't you just let him in? And then play with him for a while. When we have uninvited guests, we shouldn't waste an opportunity to show them our hospitality, sweetheart." Translation: Lure him in and kill him. Of course she doesn't need to tell Sally that, since the girl was always set to aggro mode on anyone who came near that hadn't first been introduced to her by her 'new' mother. New in this case meaning the person who'd adopted her through rather arcane means almost a century ago.
The fact that Bianca enjoyed it when those who would interfere in her plans met untimely demises was only a bonus. After all, these mammals Sally regularly tormented and destroyed were food. Sometimes she played with her food, but they weren't really people.
She descends the stairs with the youngest-looking (though technically one of the oldest) members of her family, an arm casually around the younger girl's shoulders like a protective parent. "Oh, the usual. I went to a fight, watched some of the animals hurt each other. Only really met one who was interesting. Talked some business. Then I let my hair down for a little while before coming home." She gives that shoulder a squeeze as the pass the wine cellar (half of which was blood) and begin to make their way into the more modernized, fortress-like labyrinth of tunnels that led to the sealed bedrooms. Not even dynamite was going to introduce the sun into the sleeping chambers of Bianca and her brood.
"Mommy didn't mean to make you wait, I just needed to unwind a little. Do you need more playmates to pass the time with? There's a particularly irritating little runt at the office I don't like. Or this perky new intern that I'm sure doesn't have two braincells to rub together."
Sally doesn't enjoy her time spent with other people outside of the one obvious individual who continues to comfort her and make her feel better as they head into the underground domain of the vampires. She usually stays out of sight in these passages, floating through walls and keeping an eye on others. But even this deep under the mansion, this is still 'her' domain. All the 'family' that dwell down here are 'guests' not people Sally likes. So 'playmates' sound about as fun as having a torch thrown in her face and about as likely to generate a hostile response. But she has had many in the past, usually people who Bianca wants to get rid of. It's nothing new to her to have them offered or provided. If hurting or killing makes her mother happy, then it's not like she's reluctant. Sally hurts and kills regularly. There's an entire attic full of mummified owls, possums, raccoons, rats, and so on who tried to climb in and have the time of their life, only to find madness and death-by-dessication.
No trespasser is spared. 'Guests' are one thing, but trespassers are universally 'people who need to be scared off or tortured to death'. Playmates are typically 'trespassers who are escorted within range of Sally and then left alone with her without any mention of them being guests'.
Sally inclines her head. Instead of answering on the matter of playmates, she says something unexpected. Which in and of itself may be unexpected. As imaginative as Sally is when it comes to horrific murders, as a dead thing she can be rather predictable. She has obssessive behaviors and compulsions she follows, aspects of her personality that are now well-known to Bianca, body language (such as it is) that can clue the vampiress in rather easily to what Sally's inner thoughts are. The little ghost is not very good at hiding her thoughts and emotions, and she has never ever lied to Bianca.
Thus, new behavior, innovation, and expanding beyond the limited range of familiar traits Sally is known to possess is unusual when it happens. Like right now. "I saw children pass in the street." Sally's bare feet continue to pad-pad-pad on the cold marble floor of the hall they're in, but the sound of the footfalls themselves has ceased. Then she drops a bit of a bombshell. "I want one. I want a body."
The walk downstairs is really starting to turn into a more one-sided conversation. But then, that wasn't all that unusual a phenomenon when one happened to be talking with a dead girl. They walk past the rooms that house weapons, the rooms that house stolen illegal goods waiting to be fenced, the rooms that house various things belonging to the family that were too sensitive, valuable, or powerful to let roam very far without being behind steel doors. And then they reach what looks like an enormous bank vault converted into a bedroom.
But whether it was a vault turned bedroom or a bedroom designed like a vault didn't really matter. Bianca slept in a gosh-darned nuclear fallout shelter! The door could be locked from the inside, the outside, on a timer, whatever its owner (or Sally) wished. While on the outside all one could see was a huge, hydraulicly-powered metal door. And that's when Sally drops her little bombshell.
Bianca stops in the doorway to her bedroom, turning to look down at her little charge with her eyebrows raised in surprise. Wanting the kids she'd seen dead, that would have been an expected response from an angry ghost full of jealousy and rage. But wanting to possess one? Or... just play with its corpse? Maybe a dead little friend?
Not that the murderous vampire had any problem with any of those options. She cups her daughter's chin in her hand, turning her corporeal, too-pale face up to look at her. "Just tell me what kind of child of you want and it's yours, sweetie. Do you want one that looks like you, or different? Tall, short? Do you want more than one?"
Because keeping a stock of frozen and embalmed corpses for your ghost-daughter to play with or possess couldn't be any creepier than this family already was. She ushers the 'little girl' into the room. "Why don't you tell me while we get you ready for bed."
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