What Goes Bump in the Dark
22st of July 2006 A.D.
"I think..." you trail off, the lie swift to your lips. "I think I can find Matthews granddaughter now. I just need a few minutes outside to look. Do you mind...?"
"Be careful, there are wards to snare the eye of the unwary seer," Gard answers, though the look in her eye is less one of worry and more of contemplation. Odds are she realized you do not want her to see how you do your divination. Well good for her then, you refuse to feel guilty over a reasonable precaution.
Clippy flips to the girl's picture without needing to be asked and as you set your mind upon it you ask simply:
"What is the swiftest path to her?"
Lost 1 Essence
This time the vision does not fade into view around as you as it had at Saint Mary's. Instead you feel as if some unseen force yanks you out of your body and you are hurled formless and insubstantial across the city, you are the whisper behind a thousand voices, you are the sharp glare of traffic lights, the shrill call of a car alarm that goes off without reason, until you come to what looks like a tattoo parlor, though you would not be caught dead inside Karl's Tats' and Piercings because it looks like the kind of place where people
have been caught dead, of blood poisoning. You do not get much of a sense of the people inside other than they seem to be of the big, beefy and startlingly well armed variety and yet they are all eerily quiet.
There's a trap door in one of the storage rooms that leads down to a basement that had not always been a basement, then down some rickety stairs into a maintenance tunnel that had not seem much maintenance filled with the odor of refuse and human waste, but the deeper you go the more the signs change, from gang marks to just plain weird graffiti to things that start to look like the markings of the occult, from refuse to old blood to half-gnawed animal bodies and a moment later you see what's doing the gnawing... Sometimes you wish your power were a bit less detailed with the answers.
Hunched and snarling though long double-jointed jaws, dirty claws pulling the meat off the bones ghouls bear all the worst features of a bloated corpse and a hyena mingled together. But these are not just mindless beasts, you know, the most horrifying part about ghouls is that they are born with a hunam-like mind and roughly human sensitivities as well as an unspeakable hunger for the flesh of man. Every single ghoul is driven in some way mad by their broken nature.
There shouldn't be this many of them here fighting over half a stray dog, you realize as you rush past. Something had called them here and by blandishments or by force made guards of them. Past the ghouls there is a heavy iron grate and beyond that to your surprise rusted iron bed-frame set against a brick wall of what might once have been a fancy wine cellar from the hoops quietly rusting not far from it. On the bed, apparently sleeping quietly is the girl you have been looking for apparently sleeping soundly, though the occult markings carved into the wall above her give lie to the impression. Four spears set int a line.
Four and three and three and seven lines...
"A spell of slumber and a ward all at once that draws on the life of the bespelled," Usum whispers in the back of your mind.
"A way to set a ward where no threshold is. Clever..."
Just as the vision fades you feel a foulness on the tongue and at the edge of hearing the labored breathing in anticipation of one who no longer needs breath. The chamber is not as empty as it seems.
"Well," you start as your dad and Gard come out of the restaurant. "I know where she is and how to get there, Undertown." Harry had told you to avoid it, but that had been exploring alone not with your dad and even more backup. "There's a bunch of mortal thralls guarding the entrance, then a bunch of ghouls... er you know what those are right?"
Gard snorts, though she looks more amused than annoyed. "Yes." Dad just nods.
"Then there is as warded iron gate with the ward linked to Cindy's life-force.."
"The svefnthorn." Now the Valkyrie looks offended, but not at you. "That she would dare to twist it to such purpose. Nevermind, go on."
"I got a feeling like there's ghosts just on the other side, maybe guards, maybe just watchers."
"Good work," Gard says, curt as ever but no less sincere for it. "We need to burn out all the electronics in the tatoo parlor before we go in to make sure the thralls can't send out an alarm then deal with the corpse eaters the usual way. I'll handle the ward and I assume..." she glances at dad. "The sword you bear cuts specters as easily as flesh."
"When there is need," your dad agrees. "What do you intend to do about the people that were enchanted?"
"We could just disarm and tie them up," you say quickly. "Or... we could try to get Special Investigations involved to have some kind of official cover for all the mess."
You expect Gard to suggest asking her boss or employer you guess for some goons. She surprises you. "Or we could leak this to the agents who have Dresden, even if they are infiltrated institutionally the sight of a ghoul nest would clarify their immediate loyalties very well. If we are subtle enough and linger close we can made it seem as if their tool are being too independent and force Katrina into the open on our terms."
What do you sugest?
[] Move in to save Cindy at once
[] Leak the location of the ghouls to Wright and his team
[] Try to speak to Lydia, you suspect her father is somehow involved
[] Wait to see if Father Forthil can get Harry out with Murphy's help
[] Write in
OOC: The question could have been 'What obstacles are on the swiftest path between me and where Cindy is being held?' but your power is not a literal genie, it showed you were she is with the most amount of detail it could manage with an eye for your intent which was a rescue mission. 
