Chapter Text
Something dark bided its time in the shadows. It blended into passing laughter and conversation; it filtered through a cool spring breeze. It waited, and waited, and waited.
Then, finally, when the time was just right…
***
It wasn’t Mattis’s worst idea. Well, maybe it was, but Thornbury had already agreed to go and he couldn’t back out now. But no, that wasn’t entirely true, either. He could find some excuse to get out of it, probably. Feign work or an illness or something equally unpleasant.
Would that make him a bad friend, though? He didn’t know.
“All this for a missing persons case?” Thornbury said into his cell phone.
“I really think we can crack this one. Honestly,” the voice on the other end replied.
Thornbury was doubtful, but he couldn’t seem to dissuade his friend from going through with this. Try as he might, Mattis was determined beyond any sense of reason that he could understand.
“This source of yours, can we really trust her?”
Mattis’s “source” was some woman that was supposedly an expert in the field. They were scheduled to meet up with her at a coffee shop in town, actually, which was where Thornbury was currently headed to.
“She’s the real thing,” Mattis assured him. “She knows, like, everything about this cult.”
Somehow, that did not make him feel much better.
“We’re gonna end up dead going on one of these little quests of yours, you know,” Thornbury sighed. “Our luck will eventually run out.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not counting on luck for this, then,” Mattis replied, far too confident for Thornbury’s liking.
He’d long ago resigned himself to the possibility of dying on the job, so to speak. But he’d always figured it’d be at the hands of some cosmic-horror-level monster, not a cult of backwoods hillbillies, or whatever these people were.
“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Thornbury told his friend. “If something goes wrong—“
“It won’t,” Mattis insisted. “We just get in, get the information we need, and get out.”
Thornbury didn’t think it would be that simple, but there was no use in arguing. Mattis had made up his mind, and nothing could change it now. They were headed toward something stupid at best and fatal at worst, and Thornbury only agreed to go because he didn’t want his friend to end up as a blood sacrifice to summon a demon, or something equally as horrific.
After saying goodbye to his friend and ending the call, Thornbury turned down the street the café was on. Overhead, previously blue and sunny skies turned a saddened shade of gray. By the time he parked his car and stepped out onto the pavement, it was already drizzling rain.
He pushed open the glass door and stepped into the small coffee shop, which was considerably warmer than the falling temperature outside. It was a surprisingly crisp and cool day for springtime, but then again, it was only April.
As Thornbury scanned the patrons for any sign of his friend and the “expert on cults” that they were about to meet in person for the first time, the sky outside darkened from gray to black and a torrent of rain splashed down all at once. Thornbury didn’t see any sign of Mattis in the establishment, but a woman near the back of the room waved him over.
According to Mattis, the woman they were meeting was named Violet and was an ex-member of the cult they were attempting to infiltrate. From the work-official photo Mattis had shown him earlier that week, Violet had long brown hair and dark blue eyes.
The woman waving at him seemed to match that description pretty well, so he sauntered over.
“You must be Aidan Thornbury,” she said with a smile as he approached the table.
“I am,” he confirmed. “And you must be Violet,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Indeed I am,” she said, still giving him a friendly smile.
He took a seat across from her and mentioned how Mattis must’ve been running late. They made small talk for a few minutes, during which time Thornbury spent trying to deduce how old Violet was.
If he had to take a guess, he’d say between twenty-five and thirty-five. Her smooth skin and elegant yet appealing outfit suggested that she was on the younger end of that scale, but her posture and overall demeanor so far pointed toward the opposite being true.
She was wearing a white jumpsuit with a tan raincoat draped over her shoulders like a cape. She had makeup on, but it was subtle enough to pass as natural. She was pretty, undeniably so.
Eventually, Mattis wandered in. He clearly got caught in the downpour, and Thornbury noticed how Violet had to stifle a laugh as she greeted him.
“My jeep broke down,” Mattis huffed, wiping water off of his face. “I had to park outside of town and walk the rest of the way here.”
Thornbury couldn’t help the smug expression that overtook his face. “Now if that isn’t a sign that this is a bad idea, I don’t know what is.”
Mattis ignored his comment and plopped down in the seat next to him. Meanwhile, Violet offered to buy them all a coffee.
“I don’t wanna hear it,” Mattis said preemptively, as soon as Violet was out of earshot. “The last twenty minutes have not been pleasant for me.”
Thornbury still couldn’t help his smirk. “Oh, I’m sure they haven’t been. Though, I do feel like there’s some way all of this could’ve been avoided…”
“Listen here, you little—“
Mattis cut himself off when Violet glanced over from the line she was standing in to wave at both of them. He waved back, looking a little sheepish, and in return she winked at him.
Thornbury low-whistled. “Well, now. This whole cult thing might be a bust, but you might’ve just gotten yourself a girlfriend.”
Mattis glared at him. “Shut up. I am not in the mood right now.”
“I suppose not,” Thornbury agreed. “Though she could probably help with that—“
A swift elbow to the ribs was enough for Thornbury to get the picture. Well, at least for now. The teasing would come later.
“Everything okay over here, boys?” Violet asked, returning with their drinks.
Thornbury said, “Everything’s great”. At the same time, Mattis said, “Just peachy.”
“Awesome, because we have a lot to discuss, starting with your cover stories.”