Chapter Text
Tomas was briefed by a low-level technician, as they traveled through grim concrete passageways far beneath the earth. His brief explanation colored by a light southern drawl, “Alright, Father, this is definitely going to be out of your purview, but one of our secretaries –your, uh, sister, right? - said you were trustworthy and if we want to understand this thing, and quickly, we need all the help we can get. One of our agents captured a…creature of some sort. Something out of fucking myth, if you’ll pardon my language.” The man shook his head. “And we’ve got no idea what we’re dealing with. It’s started mimicking our questions, but we haven’t gotten it cooperative enough to tell if it’s just dicking with us or if it’s actually able to communicate. Whoops, sorry Father.” Tomas waved the comment away. “One of the janitors thought she heard it say a few words in Latin. She didn’t know any, beyond a couple prayers, so we couldn’t be sure if it was true speech or just mimicry. So that’s the job – figure that out for us. Still think you’re up for it?”
“Yes, I believe so.” Tomas was very certain he couldn’t do the job. Although he was as fluent in Latin is as anyone could be in this day and age, Tomas couldn’t help but feel trapped in these narrow walls, flooded by unnaturally bright fluorescent lights. He wished he could simply leave this place; even the grey Chicago skies seemed sunnier than this pit, from which nothing seemed to return.
“Here we are,” the technician announced before a large concrete door. “I’ll be nearby if anything goes wrong and we’ve got security cameras keeping an eye on you, so don’t you worry about a thing. Just stay in front of the big yellow line – it’s to keep anyone from being hurt. I’ll leave y’all to get acquainted.” And with an amiable wave, the man departed.
Tomas stumbled a little when he entered the large, domed room. Behind the arcing yellow line was a mural of sorts – images of woods and rivers, birds and men in rusty red against smooth concrete. Some were crude, the lines unsteady, while others held the fine lines of a skilled artist’s brush. But despite the images’ beauty, the whole tableau made Tomas shiver. It was only then he noticed an enormous pair of tawny wings, flecked with the same red as the wall before him. The left wing trailed on the floor, unnaturally bent and smearing copper red onto the floor as the wings’ owner moved on clawed, three-toed feet, lightly but carefully to continue his composition – a great branching tree.
Tomas stepped forward cautiously, still eyeing the bloody wing in horrified fascination. “Hello? My name is Father Tomas Ortega. I was asked to speak with you. They, uh, didn’t give me your name but maybe you would be willing to tell me.” In his uneasiness, Tomas had forgotten to try to speak Latin, so he falteringly repeated his introduction.
Silence reigned over the large room, apart from the gentle scrape of wing on cement, as the creature brushed new additions to the tree in front of him – skeletal and twisted but standing firm all the same. Tomas walked around the perimeter of the boundary, trying to understand exactly what he was seeing. He caught a glimpse of a human-like torso, but the creature suddenly turned so that its back was still to Tomas
Although Tomas could not see what the creature’s face was like, Tomas thought he caught a tenseness around the creature’s shoulders. Suddenly the silence was broken by a hiss of released breath. Maybe it – he? - jostled the injured wing, Tomas thought. Tomas tried to speak again, this time remembering to stick to Latin, “You’re hurt. Let me find a doctor to fix your wing.”
A horrible, bitter bark cut the silence. It was only after a few moments Tomas realized that was supposed to be laughter. A very human-looking head, with short-shorn hair came into Tomas’s view, as the creature looked up from his work. Tomas pushed onwards, “I don’t really know what’s going on but someone really needs to stop that bleeding.”
“And what else could I use for ink, Father?” came a rasping voice, softly echoing through the vaulted room.
Tomas hesitated, uncertain how to respond.
The long unused voice rose again, faster, more aggressive, “Where do you think you are, Father Tomas? What do you want? Ask and leave.”
“I…I don’t know. I believe I am meant to translate for you.”
“Ah, so you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart,” the voice scoffed, “Touching. I don’t believe you.”
“My parish needs…”
“Ah, run of the mill avarice. Lovely. Well, you got me to talk, that should be enough to fill your coffers and leave. I’m sure your parish will be delighted to hear what you’ve done.”
“Why do you assume—”
The creature cocked his head thoughtfully before replying, “I think most would prefer an honest ex-priest to a hypocrite, don’t you?”
“You know nothing about me!” Tomas’s yell rang in the silence. In his haste to prove the creature wrong, Tomas had stepped over the yellow line. Before that thought could even register, pain blossomed in Tomas’s arm as he was suddenly grabbed and pulled to eye level by the creature’s talons. Startling blue eyes captured his, as calm and icy as a mountain pool, as feathery shadow wrapped tightly around his left side, preventing escape.
“No. I didn't,” the creature hissed as he pulled Tomas close. The sudden proximity startled Tomas just as much as the sudden shift back to English. “You’re an emotional man, Tomas Ortega, expressing concern for someone you just met, and you’re proud enough to easily provoke. I’d use you as a hostage but I doubt they’d care if you lived or died.” Tomas blanched. The creature grinned. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. No point really. They’ll just use it to make my life harder. Pretend they care about the ‘sanctity of human life’ or something.”
Tomas’s eyes flickered around, searching in vain for a way out, “Then what are you going to do?”
“Give you some good advice: go home. Tend to your flock and pretend you never saw this place, never saw me. Tell them I didn’t say a word of sense. Tell them I’m just a feral animal that attacked you and maybe, just maybe, they’ll forget about you.”
“But what about the cameras?”
The creature rolled his eyes and shrugged his wing slightly, wrapping tighter around Tomas’s shoulder like a snug, feathery blanket. “I think they’ll find it hard to read anyone’s lips this way.”
“I wish I…,” Tomas sighed, shaking his head, “I can’t.”
The creature’s eyes widened slightly and he tilted his head in question.
“There’s a girl from my parish. She’s gone missing, and Maria Walters promised to help us find her, if I did her this favor. I can’t go back and tell the girl’s family that I didn’t do everything I could to save her. I can’t.”
The creature looked oddly disappointed. “Well, it’s your choice then, Father Tomas Ortega. Be careful. I won’t be responsible for you.” He grinned, suddenly, brightly, “Best give them a good show!”
With a horrible screech, the creature forcefully released Tomas, pushing him back towards the door. Tomas stumbled and fell over a few feet away, grasping his arm in pain as blood, hot and all too familiar to this room, gushed from his ruined left sleeve. Tomas’s pain-blurred eyes met the impassive face of the creature in front of him. After a few moments’ tense silence, the creature turned his back in clear dismissal of Tomas and shaking out the claw that has so recently gripped Tomas’s arm, wet with blood. With a sharp eye, the creature noticed a wanting section on the ever-growing tree in front of him and quickly added roots to the gnarled base in Tomas’s quickly drying blood.