Note: We take this time to deliver an important message to you, the reader: “Hello.”
Oh, and for all of you who have been pushing… I’m sorry this took so long, so here goes! Though, it’s STILL not finished! WHAT am I doing?!
Legalities: Property of WB!
Rating: N/R
Secret Part 2
Ancestry
By: Carmen Wayne
It hadn’t been a good day for Terrence McGinnis. First, he was dragged to another country to a gigantic… house/castle/mansion with his boss, Bruce Wayne. They had been accompanied by Timothy Drake, Barbara Gordon and Richard (Dick) Grayson, which wasn’t so bad… Except all four were babysitting him. He had been told not to pass under any archways that were made of griffin statues. He had no idea why, but now he was being explained the reasoning slowly but surely.
“Okay, so… the Commissioner turned around and saw what?” he asked.
He felt slightly faint and slumped in the chair that they sat him in, within the main lobby. Dick Grayson coughed and looked at Barbara. She gave an honest shrug.
“Lets not get into that, but… Well… I screamed my head off and ran, what else? I had no idea what that thing was and I wasn’t about to engage it until I absolutely had to!”
Terry looked at Tim and smirked slightly.
“That’s why you TALK to it.”
Barbara rolled her eyes and sat across from him.
“So, anyway…”
****####****####****####****
The picture/art gallery was dark, and slightly damp. Young Dick Grayson and even younger Timothy Drake stood together, Tim waving their flashlight over it.
“This is insane…” Tim whispered, still staring at the picture of the beautiful woman in the black attire.
“Her name is Miranda Grayson-Drake…” Dick Grayson mumbled. “You’re right, this IS insane…!”
“Is this some kind of horrible JOKE?” Tim asked.
“No,” a dark voice replied behind them. They spun to see the young Bruce Wayne standing there. “Not a joke.”
The two stood straight and Tim paced across the marble floor to Bruce. He turned back to the picture of Miranda.
“Who is she?”
“The daughter of a lord, and wife of another lord that was in close ties with the royalty of my ancestors.”
“Well, she’s not related to ME,” Dick said. “That’s impossible!”
“In blood, perhaps. But not in clanship.”
“What’s THAT?” Tim asked.
“Clanship. That means hundreds, or even thousands of years ago, a group of people shared similar blood ties, but as the family grew, the blood became so thin, it was almost obsolete. All that remains is the name. Every last name is a clan, and the last names of their mothers, a clan,” Bruce explained. “My father owned a journal, written by a ancestor of mine from the sixteen hundreds. It very thoroughly describes that this area, spanning from Scotland to England, was an unwritten kingdom. Ruled by several kings and queens—“
“Your ancestors being part of them,” Dick said.
“… Miranda Grayson-Drake, hyphenated for reasons unknown, disappeared in this mansion. Or so they say.” He looked at Tim, dead in the eyes. “They say a lot of things about her. They say a lot about this mansion in general. None of which I believe. Now…” He started away, lighting a flare. “If you want to be scared out of your mind by simple hallucinations, feel free to stay here. If not, come with me.”
Tim looked at Dick, who was holding his ground. Tim coughed some and sprinted after Bruce.
“Uh… how did you find this place?”
No response. Tim frowned and followed him out. Meanwhile, Dick turned on his flashlight and started in the opposite direction, knowing he was going to regret it…
****
Barbara Gordon leapt up a small flight of stairs to a narrow passage. Blood drummed in her ears from the exhaustion of running, but she didn’t seem to pay any attention. At the end of the narrow passage, to her surprise, was a tall, yet narrow, oak door. Carved into it was the figure of a lunging griffin. She placed her hand on the doorknob slowly.
“I swear to God, that if this means a griffin’s going to attack me when I open this door, I’m giving up…” she mumbled, panting heavily. “No more, that’s it, screw everyone, I’ll be going home.”
She closed her eyes and shoved the door open, expecting anything to happen. When nothing did, she opened one eye, then the other. It was a bedroom, covered in vines. Barbara paced in slowly, looking around at the ancient paintings that spanned the walls. She had to maneuver around vines that draped from the ceiling and large chandeliers. It was when she came to the side of the large bed and shoved to the side the white curtain canopy that she saw a little doll laying there, covered in dust.
“A… child’s room…?” she asked softly, scooping the doll up into her hands.
She turned as she played with the still soft hairs to find another way out, when her eyes fell upon a small, transparent figure. Barbara could feel herself begin to seize up at the sight of the ghostly girl, but then began to calm as she saw she was staring at a music box—which lit into life and played a soft melody that she had never heard before. Swallowing hard, Barbara forced her feet towards the girl.
“Uhm… excuse… excuse me…?”
Her voice was weak, not believing what she was seeing. The girl turned to her, and Barbara drew back, frightened. The girl’s face was completely black, except for two glowing red eyes. The black was framed by her golden curls and contrasted with the white night dress she wore.
She slowly stood, being only to Barbara’s waist as it was. She pointed to the doll slowly.
“May I have my dolly, please?” she asked brokenly with a soft English accent.
Barbara looked at the doll in her hands, and then the girl.
“Uhm… sure,” she said gently.
The girl held out her hands. Barbara set the doll into them and backed away. Her heart was still pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears.
“Thank you,” the girl said. She cuddled the doll, and then looked to Barbara. “My name is Elizabeth Wayne. What’s yours?”
“Wayne…” Barbara said softly. She had been beginning to wonder why the girl was in Scotland with an English accent, but that made sense. She coughed a little and spoke louder, “B…Barbara…”
“That’s a pretty name… Are you lost, Barbara?” Elizabeth asked.
Barbara couldn’t believe she was responding with a nod and a soft, “Yes”. She was trying so hard to convince herself it was a hallucination that by the time the answer was out, she thought she had gone nuts. There was a rumble outside the hall… what followed was a low growl, emitting almost like a howl from a deep throated wolf. The girl shivered a little… while Barbara rocked on her heels patiently, singing Britney Spears’ “Stronger” song, trying to space out everything. The girl looked with her red eyes to Barbara.
“Okay… I’ll take you someplace safe. But stay right behind me or the bad men will get you.”
She headed to the door and opened it, looked to see if Barbara would be following, and hurried out. Barbara sucked in all her fear with one, long breath and ran after whatever the girl was, hoping she wouldn’t get killed in the process.
**
Dick slid on his night vision goggles in place of the flashlight. He was mumbling curses to himself over Miranda Grayson-Drake and Bruce as he paced down a narrow corridor that was sloping downwards.
“Stupid Bruce… thinks he’s so smart… Miranda Grayson-Drake my lily white…… foot…” He passed under a griffin archway, this one different than the others, for the griffin was high above the arch with a wing spreading down each side of the hall, and a line of red fabric beyond. “Bet he put that damn picture there just to scare the mother effin’ hell out of us… He does that… no one believes ME… Oooh no, why should they?” he babbled as he pushed through the red silk curtain. “I only lived with the man most of my developmental life—whoa.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, finding he was in a large room that had green vines hanging all over, and a running fountain in the center. Statues of fairies and easily recognizable Greek and Egyptian gods surrounded it.
“A… garden?” he asked softly.
He walked over to the fountain and looked at the center that was spurting the old, dirty water towards his right. It was a freakish looking creature, like a satyr but with larger horns, and claws on both it’s hands and it’s horse-turned legs. The water sprayed from the horribly fanged mouth, that was open wide with the eyes.
‘Wouldn’t want to meet that thing in a dark alley…’ he thought.
He turned to look around the dark room, that was illuminated with green inside his goggles. As he turned away, he felt a slight movement at the fountain and spun… to see the water was now being spurted towards his left instead of his right. Dick twitched.
“That’s IT!” he yelled at the freakish satyr. “I quit!”
He turned and stormed for the door.
“All the better you leave Earth’s hell.”
Dick stopped dead in his tracks.
“Oh, you did not!” He spun around to see the satyr now was spraying the water directly towards him. He laughed crazily and stomped the ground. “I can feel my sanity FLYING away!!!!” He pointed dramatically at the door. “Oh, there it goes! I better chase it!”
He bent his arms and brought his hands near his cheeks and began to flutter them like wings. He laughed in a high-pitched girly tone and ran to the curtains. He kicked the curtains open and yelped, seeing a person there.
Out of reflex to a man leaping out in front of her that was laughing insanely, Barbara Gordon flung out a punch right to his face. She cringed as she realized it was Dick from the rapid firing of cuss words.
“Dick, I’m so sorry!”
Dick was relieved to hear her voice, but couldn’t tell her as he was preoccupied with straightening out his nose.
“Ack… mother f…”
Barbara squinted to see him in the darkness.
“Dick, I can’t see you…”
Dick held his nose and looked at her to see she wasn’t wearing her night goggles or holding a flashlight.
“Babs… You’re walking around in pitch black… and you’re complaining you can’t see ME?”
“But—there were lights here JUST a second ago!”
“Uhm. No?”
Barbara blindly found her goggles and slid them on.
“Yes! I was following a…” She stopped as she looked beside her, seeing the girl, and doll, that she had been following, had vanished. “Well. That sucks.”
“Babs—I can’t see straight!”
“Stop whining.”
Dick stuck his tongue out at her and blew a raspberry. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her inside the area.
“You have got to see this—it’s FREAKY!”
**
Tim had been following Bruce along in silence, rubbing the bandages that were still on his arms. Bruce walked up a small flight of stairs and to a wall at the top. Tim thought it was a dead end, until Bruce easily pushed it open and walked out onto the main lobby’s floor. Tim followed him out, then coughed slightly.
“Something’s… bothering me, Bruce,” Tim said.
“You want to know how I know my way around?”
“Well, yeah! Did you memorize the maps or something?”
Bruce shook his head and holstered his flashlight. With a short sigh, and a glance around, he spoke:
“I came here with my mother and father when I was a child. I know the layout. I don’t understand this place, however, or what’s happening.”
“It’s freaky sh—“
“TIM.”
“Sorry.”
He gave Tim a scolding look, and then sighed.
“They used to give me all these rules for passing around in here. I’m sure it’s just the surroundings playing games.”
Tim crossed his arms.
“And last night?” Bruce didn’t respond, he just walked off slowly. Tim frowned and followed behind him. “Bruce, you know more than you’re telling, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do!”
“NO, I DON’T.”
The tone was the “Leave me alone” tone, and Tim was wise enough to leave it at that. He parted from Bruce, who headed down another corridor, and headed upstairs to reach his room. He was walking casually when he heard a slight sound, like the sound of glass moving against glass. His steps were frozen at this point. ‘This is ridiculous… BeBarbaraBeDickBeBarbaraBeDick…’ he repeated over and over in his mind as he began to turn. His blue eyes floated up to the great chandelier above the lobby. What he saw was not, in fact, either Dick or Barbara… but a blackened figure… And THAT was enough reason for:
“BRUUUUCE!!!!!”
Bruce came sprinting back out of the large hall at the scream.
“What?!”
“L-Look!!”
He pointed up at the chandelier. Bruce looked up and raised an eyebrow. His eyes slowly drifted back to his ward.
“Timothy, there’s nothing there…”
“Y-Yes there is!! BRUCE! It’s BIG, it’s BLACK, and I think it’s STARING AT ME!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tim—Tim?”
Bruce watched as Tim bolted away into the right corridor and out of sight. Bruce frowned, looking back up at the chandelier. His eyes narrowed as he discussed all that had happened in his mind.
‘This isn’t right. What’s going on here?’ he asked as he headed back from where he came. ‘I haven’t seen a thing. I’m sure it’s just something they caught… altitude change…’
**
“Congratulations,” Barbara said, staring at the satyr. “It’s a statue.”
“Did you even hear what I told you about it?!” Dick said, shaking her.
She slapped him away a bit and sighed.
“Yes, yes, I did…” She thought back to that little girl she saw and sighed. “Look, maybe it’s something we drank.”
“Or ATE,” Dick muttered, thinking back to last night’s dinner courtesy of Barbara.
“Shut up.”
She slid on her night vision goggles and clicked off her flashlight. Dick muttered profanities as he walked over and kicked down the statue into the mucky water that surrounded it. Barbara smirked.
“Better now?”
“Quite.”
“Then, lets go.”
She turned on her heel slowly and started away. With high reluctance, Dick followed.
“You know, you wouldn’t believe something that Tim and I found…”
****####****####****####****
Terry McGinnis busted into inane laughter. Barbara blinked and looked at him, as did the other three guys. Eyes watering, Terry tried to talk through his laughing.
“This--heh--heheh--is TOO much--!” he chuckled out hard. He inhaled and looked at them. “You HONESTLY expect me to believe THAT? Guys…” He rose to his feet and wiped his eyes. “I’ll PROVE to you it’s not true. I’ll walk this entire house without seeing a thing!” He began walking/limping for a griffin archway. “Maybe everything was caused by a certain electromagnetic field. Especially since Drake was the target.”
“Kid, don’t be stupid,” Dick said.
“It’s a fact,” Terry continued as he slowly trodded along, “that some teenagers have the ability to create destructive electromagnetic fields. All to often the superstitious blame it on poltergeists when in reality it’s a mentally enforced change to the all ready unstable environment.”
Tim looked at the other three.
“Since when did he get smart?”
Bruce sighed, shaking his head.
“He comes from a family of scientists, what do you expect?”
“Should we let him go?” Dick asked.
Bruce frowned… and then slowly nodded.
“Maybe he’s right.”
“But think about everything *WE* encountered!”
****####****####****####****
Timothy walked along, hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. He was truly beginning to think he had gone insane. Everything that was happening seemed so impossible he couldn’t even bring himself to believe it himself.
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud screeching sound. First it sounded like nails on a chalk board, then erupted into a full blown scream of pain and agony. Tim nearly freaked at that and backed away fast--until he slammed right into another body. He tried to move but something held him tight by the arms.
“It’s no use trying to run, Timothy DRAKE,” sneered a voice, emphasizing his last name with hatred. “You will pay for your sins!!!”
“Sins--LET ME GO!!!” he yelled.
He attempted to slam his foot down on the foot of the one behind him, but it just hit floor. The body behind him slammed him forward, straight into a window. He went through the glass and the body let him go, and he felt himself plummeting downwards, straight for a pond that was below the window. When he hit the mucky water, it felt like he was sinking through ribbed plastic. At one point, he felt his hands hit the bottom, and he attempted to push up, but vines were now wrapped tightly around him, binding him in the water…
****
“What was that…?!” Barbara exclaimed after hearing the glass break and the splash once they had just pulled themselves out of darkness through a passage they accidentally found.
“I dunno,” Dick said. “It came from that way though!”
He pointed towards the bubbling, filthy pond. Barbara and he took off for it, wondering what it was.
“Turn on your light, we’ll shine it through!” Barbara stated.
“Right!”
Dick prepared his flashlight and charged up behind Barbara. Both sprung up onto the ledge surrounding it. Barbara drew out her light and together they flashed it down. They couldn’t see much, but a figure that was struggling with the vines. It was a smaller figure, and they put two and two together…
“TIMMY!” Barbara screamed.
She went to dive, but Dick grabbed her arm.
“I’ll go, prep to pull us up!”
He dove in quickly before Barbara could object. She jumped in and gripped the side of the pond, waiting.
Dick swam down and used his light to evaluate what was happening to the boy. Vines were wrapped in an almost bondage style, around his wrists, ankles and neck. Dick grabbed him and dropped the light so he could draw out a knife to start slicing the vines. Tim was lashing around violently, trying to get free and he making it that much harder for Dick to cut him free.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Bruce came running to the broken window above the pond.
“Barbara?! What’s happening?”
“Tim’s down there!” she yelled. She waved the flashlight in the water to show the two figures struggling down below her. “Dick’s trying to get him out!”
Bruce frowned and looked around where he stood, trying to find what Tim would have tripped on. Nothing was there, except two impressions in the floor, like the wood was melted slightly under a pair of feet.
“What the hell?”
Down below, in the water, Dick managed to cut him free, stick the knife in his belt, and swing his hand up to the waiting hand of Barbara. Barbara quickly helped pull them to the surface, straining her arm to do so. As soon as they both surfaced…
“ARUGH!” Tim screamed with what little air he still held in his lungs.
Dick pulled up onto the side of the pond, still being aided by Barbara. Tim was coughing hard and gasping for air. He began to squirm as the energy that natural breath would give, writhing around.
“I—I didn’t—DO ANYTHING WRONG!” he yelled.
Barbara pulled up and sat next to them and tried to help Dick restrain the frantic Tim, who was still insisting that he didn’t do anything wrong or bad. Bruce, still above in the window, flashed his light down to them from their attention. The two younger adults looked up to him.
“Get him cleaned up and to bed. Barbara, stay with him. Dick, meet me at my room.”
And then he vanished beyond the sight of the window. The two didn’t waste any time to comply.
****####****####****####****
Terry continued to walk along, having to move slowly so he wouldn’t barf all over the place. He was dizzy, he was feeling weak, but he had a point to prove, and he wasn’t about to give up on his mission. So, he began to approach the first griffin stairway.
As he approached it, he could hear a soft theme being played. He slowly came to it and placed his hand on the smooth, worn wood. All the while, his mind was divided on that theme and trying to figure out about that “Miranda Grayson-Drake”. Drawing in a soft breath and locking it in his lungs, he paced through the archway.
The theme became more audible as he did so, and it was coming from his left. Curiousness getting the best of him, he started that way, feeling the ability to straighten himself. The fever began to lift and he was starting to feel healthy again. ‘Just the air,’ he blamed in his mind. ‘Mold and such,’ he insisted. ‘Air’s cleaner here. That’s all.’ And he continued to press on.
To his left was a long wall. Dark and steady, bidding him to continue to press on to the door about fifty yards away. To his right was a wall of colored glass. He took a moment to walk over and peer through the lightest of the colors to see what was on the other side… and it was the alleged garden the group had so many encounters with in supposedly the first time they were there. Directly across from where he was peering out was a shattered window about twenty feet above a vine-covered pond… He could only assume that was either a victim of time, or a victim of something that happened by physical means.
Terry shook it off. Not his business. Not yet. He turned and headed for the door once more. The light piano theme continued to play, but then a flute accompaniment joined in. Interested and feeling completely well, Terry hurried to the door to peer inside. But just before he got there, there was a flash of light and something hard hit the ground. When he peered in, he saw a grand piano still keying away on it’s own, and a flute rolled towards him on the ground. Terry walked in slowly and picked the flute up from the ground.
Something urged him to look at the piano again, and so he did. Sitting there was the player of the piano. A man that looked as though he stepped from the 18th century. His eyes glowed bright red and his face was shadowed to black, except a large toothy smile. Terry didn’t know which was more peculiar, that or the fact that he wasn’t all that frightened.
The man continued to play as he slowly turned his head at an almost inhuman angle to look at Terry. Terry was… faintly disturbed, but held his ground.
“Play with me,” he said in a deep, echoing voice that had a hint of a English accent.
Terry slowly shook his head as he took a step back.
“Sorry… don’t know how…”
“Everyone can play. Just try.”
“No… no thanks.” Terry swallowed hard as the man looked back to the piano. He took a step forward. “Who are you?”
“Michael Wayne,” he replied.
‘Another Wayne. Like the girl. This is insane, McGinnis… okay, keep talking, even if it is a hallucination, it’s better than knowing nothing.’
“What do you know about a Miranda Grayson-Drake?” he asked.
Michael Wayne stopped playing and slowly rose to his feet—which disturbed Terry because upon looking, Michael Wayne HAD no feet—and turned to Terry slowly, his red eyes narrowed.
“Do not speak of her to me.“
“Why not?”
“She is PURE evil.”
“Is she the one that tried to kill Timothy Drake?”
“She wants to kill them all. Accept you.”
“Why am I different?”
(You may think Terry is crazy for doing this, but as we all know he has fought the dead before.)
“Because you are not a Grayson. Or a Wayne. Or a Gordon. Or a DRAKE,” he sneered. “Get free and away while you can.”
“Why would I want to? What is she going to do that’s so bad?”
“She will make them pay for the sins of their ancestors.”
Terry was about to respond, when in a sudden blast, the room turned dreadfully cold and several torch lamps blasted in fire. Michael Wayne growled.
“She is HERE…“
In a flash, he was gone, as well as the piano. Terry narrowed his eyes and clutched the flute that remained as the only evidence of the musical serenade he had witnessed.
“Well, well, well…” a soft, feminine voice said. “Someone here who thinks they can stop me… heh… amusing…”
Terry felt as though the speaker was directly behind him. Slowly, he turned to look… and immediately lost consciousness.
****####****####****####****
A soft knock rapped onto the bedroom door of Bruce Wayne. He turned from where he sat, reading, and bade welcome in—or actually a welcoming grunt was given to the knocker. Dick slowly entered, running a hand through his raven hair.
“Hey…”
Bruce set the book down and watched him.
“How’s Timothy?”
Dick crossed the room and sat on Bruce’s bed. He rubbed his eyes drowsily.
“Tired. Emotional basket-case, however, he is not. He’s frightened, won’t let go of Barbara’s hand, but he got to sleep on her lap. Bruce…?”
“Yes?”
“What the hell is going on here?”
It was Bruce’s turn to rub his eyes.
“I… believe I know, but I didn’t want to inform the other two. Not until you think they should know.”
Dick quirked an eyebrow. It was an odd thing to be offered a decision making chance from BRUCE.
“Why?”
“Because you’ll know HOW.”
“O…kay.” He noticed Bruce was hesitant. “Bruce?” he asked to urge him on.
“My father used to tell me stories that my mother rather disagreed with. But I was far too young to fully understand the meaning of what he was saying, but I recall many of the things he mentioned.”
“What THINGS?”
“Apparently… our clans have been associating for a long time. Even back in the medieval era, we have been together. But along with this… knowledge of one another, the clans were… unnerved, full of betrayal.”
“I didn’t think the last names “Grayson” and “Drake” even existed before the eighteenth century.”
“I didn’t think so either, but you saw the evidence with that picture. My father had restored the gallery. On the back of her picture has her name. It’s a mystery… he explained to me about her life. But I can’t remember all of it between my mother’s scolding and plain flat cruel Father Time.”
Dick cocked his head to the side, watching as Bruce sat there, staring into space.
“What did he say?”
“Just… general tellings of a rather abstract story… Apparently, Miranda Grayson grew up in nobility, living with a highly abusive father. Sexually abusive, I’m guessing.”
“Gross… poor girl.”
“So… her father was a rather foolish man, and lost a lot of money. In order to regain his wealth, he decided to marry her off in barter.”
“For what?”
“Money. Married her off to—“
“—a Drake.”
“Assumingly. Another disgrace, this Drake just continued the abuse where her father left off.”
“Disgusting!”
“Now, we switch to a tighter alliance… the Waynes and the Gordons.”
“Damn.”
“They were the ones that rallied WITH the Graysons and the Drakes to build this house.”
“No wonder it’s so big.”
“And, the reason it’s in my possession today is because… the Gordons gave up on the house due to the hatred these particular two ends of your family branches carried. They were the kind to just turn their backs on situations. But apparently the Waynes, or at least some of them, weren’t. Several of them were just as bad, but not Justinian Wayne.”
“Cool name. What’d he do?”
“He tried to rescue her. Got thrown in a well as punishment.”
“Wunderbar.”
“Miranda soon after disappeared… and one by one the masters of this house were picked off, along with their families. The property became property under the Wayne name and… the house was kept up in appearance, but my ancestors just… refused to come back.”
“Why… did you?” Dick asked warily.
“Perfect training ground.”
“What do you think is going on here?”
“…hallucinations.”
“So… Tim… threw HIMSELF out the window, is that what you’re saying?”
“Could be a odd electromagnetic field.”
“Barbara and I *both* heard voices.”
“And Tim claimed to see something hanging on the lobby chandelier, but that doesn’t mean anything. I saw and heard nothing.”
“I think we should get the hell out of here.” Bruce sighed and looked at him. Dick stared right back at him with almost pleading eyes. “Please Bruce. What if there IS something here? It’s a force we can’t explain, and we certainly can’t fight… and it’s going after Tim the hardest, and we don’t know why… he could be KILLED.”
Bruce mentally groaned at the speech, his scientific mind explaining it all out to him perfectly. He would’ve explained it to his former ward, but he felt DONE with talking so much.
“Fine,” he responded. “Tomorrow.”
“THANK you—“
“OMIGOD!!!!!!” they heard Barbara shriek somewhere else in the house. “TIM!!!”
That was all they needed to convince them to get to them fast…
**
To Be Continued…