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lost-kingsmen · 2 months

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Madelyn McQuail had given up hope of seeing her family again after her third night in the storage container.

She may have been only twelve, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew that a little girl from Chinatown wouldn’t be any kind of priority for the local cops (if her parents reported her missing in the first place. Her dad’s own criminal record made all of them cop-shy, and she knew they couldn’t afford to lose one of their only breadwinners, with two other kids to support). She could only hope that her parents kept some of her belongings to remember her by the next time they had to tighten the budget. She hoped it was the blanket her grandma had made her. It was all the woman had left behind when she’d passed.

Most of the kids being held with her felt the same way. Some of the young ones were still crying for their families, but the older ones knew the drill. For some of them, this wasn’t even their first time being kidnapped. Some of them (the girls, mostly) had stories of being taken from school or the park or off their parents’ front steps, and being rescued at the last second by one of Gotham’s shadowy heroes. These stories calmed some of the crying ones, but Madelyn thought it cruel to get their hopes up like that.

Even with the ever-growing number of vigilantes that prowled the Gotham streets, they couldn’t be everywhere at once, and if they weren’t here by now, then they were probably not coming.

But while most kids were resigned or tearful or in denial, there was one kid who’d gone to work as soon as their captors had locked the container door on them. Madelyn hadn’t said anything as she watched him draw a series of boxes on a relatively clear piece of their cardboard bedding - one large one with rounded corners, and three or four smaller ones on one side. Their captors had taken most of their belongings (mostly things they could sell, or identifying items that they could use for proof of life or blackmail), but some kids had been left with small, nonthreatening items like Cheryl’s half-eaten root beer lollipop and Marcus’ inhaler. This kid had probably managed to hide his stick of chalk in his hand, Madelyn figured or their captors had just not seen a need to take it.

When the artist was done with the boxes, though, he got up and began to shuffle around the boxes on his knees, scratching the chalk with his fingernail to turn it into powder, and draw a thin circle around the boxes. Madelyn furrowed her brow, and finally opened her mouth.

“What are you doing?” She asked. The kid looked at her, but didn’t say anything as he finished laying down his weird chalk circle. It looked like something she’d seen in one of her older brother’s favorite ghost hunting shows. “You’re wasting good chalk. They won’t let you have any more, you know.” The kid continued to ignore Madelyn, and reached up chalk-covered hands to his mouth to pull out a soggy roll of red ribbon. Madelyn curled her lip in disgust as the kid unrolled this short ribbon and laid it down perpendicular across the center of his biggest rectangle drawing. As he started scribbling something in one of the smaller rectangles with what remained of his chalk, Madelyn quietly scooted herself away from this freaky kid.

He’d lost his mind, and lost it good.

A sudden burst of muffled laughter from the men standing outside the container caused them all to fall into a tense silence, and the strange kid froze like a deer in the headlights. The laughter faded, and the kid slowly returned to scribbling before his chalk snapped, and he cursed. Madelyn didn’t know what the word meant - it didn’t sound like English, and it certainly wasn’t Mandarin - but it was clear from the tone that it was an exclamation of anger. A few more kids were staring now, as the creepy kid continued his scribbling with the sharp stub of chalk left in his hand. When he finished, he picked up as many broken chalk pieces as he could and stuffed them into the pocket of his shorts.

From another pocket, he pulled out a stick of gum and four cigarettes, Madelyn remembered one of their captors had dropped their carton earlier, and said a lot of colorful words when he couldn’t find all the ones that had rolled away. Kids began to whisper as the kid unwrapped the gum and threw it in his mouth, chewing wildly for a few seconds before spitting it out and ripping off pieces to stick the cigarettes upright within the largest rectangle - one in each corner. He then took off his striped shirt and flipped it inside out to retrieve some sort of trading card that was taped on the inside, and more kids scooted away from him as he put the card down in the center of the big rectangle, and started to chant something.

The words were still not English, and some of the younger kids began to cry again, confused and scared by the weird activity. Madelyn wondered what she’d done wrong to not only get kidnapped, but to get kidnapped along with some weird cultist child.

“Hey,” She said. The kid kept chanting. “Hey!” Madelyn raised her voice as much as she dared. She didn’t want their captors to think they were being too loud. They’d been warned about the consequences already. “Knock it off! You’re scaring the little ones.” The kid’s voice cracked, and he faltered on his words, but he kept chanting. Madelyn felt bad. Everyone coped differently, she knew that, and she knew that she couldn’t judge someone for how they reacted when their life was in danger. But this was making an already bad situation worse for the littlest kids there, and that just wasn’t-

“Arroo?” Madelyn’s thoughts ground to a halt about the same time as the rest of the storage container fell into an eerie silence. A red mist had begun to seep up from the seams in the container floor, just outside the weird kid’s chalk circle, and take on a vaguely canine shape from the paws up. As the children watched in stunned silence, a head appeared in the smoke, lowered as if to sniff the circle. A pair of bright blue eyes lit up in the smoke, as did a heart-shaped mark as the creature sat, and looked around at the gathered children. The kids cringed back as its icy stare passed over them, and when its head could turn no further, it leaned almost upside-down to look at those directly behind it.

A few sparks of nervous laughter went around, and the creature began to wag its tail. After getting a good look at all the children, the creature turned back to the boy who had summoned it, and licked his forehead with a bright blue, somewhat see-through tongue. Then, it ran off and jumped over a few of the children, who let out startled shrieks and ducked even as the creature passed through the wall of the container and disappeared.

All that was left behind were a few chalk paw prints on the cardboard flooring, and a heavy silence.

Madelyn almost broke it after a few minutes, if only to ask what the hell that had been, when the temperature in the container suddenly began to drop. The weird kid scooted away from his drawings as ice began to spread out from the center of it with a faint crackle. The few nervous whimpers this caused were quickly shushed as the ice spread across the floor and up the container walls in a smooth, thin layer - dusting frost on the edges of blankets and shoes and pant legs - until it came together again on the ceiling. As soon as it had, a column of snowflakes began to spiral down from where the ice had met on the ceiling, rapidly building up into the shape of something tall and humanoid.

The children huddled together in fear as the snowman grew taller, and started to solidify with the crunch of snow being packed down underfoot. Color spread across the solid white like dye dropped into water, and a collective gasp ran through the frightened crowd as the figure's exposed skull lifted, revealing glowing red lights in its eye sockets. The horned skulls of some sort of large animals adorned the beings shoulders like armor, shimmering with a coating of frost and dripping with long, sharp icicles, and a heavy cape of some dark red fur hung down from its back. As it moved, testing its limbs as if to be sure they all worked, the ice across its torso cracked and sang, though Madelyn couldn't see any pieces breaking off.

The smokey, dog-like creature returned as the figure finally seemed to take notice of its frightened audience - passing through the container walls and ice like they weren't even there - to circle around the figure with its tail held high in pride. Slowly, the towering being moved one of its legs to slide back, and lowered itself to one knee. The dog-like creature hurriedly circled to sit at the being's side, like a dog called to heel, and the figure turned its skull toward the weird kid.

"Soititko minulle, pikkuinen?" (Did you call to me, little one?) He asked in a soft, low voice. It made Madelyn think of her grumpy neighbor Mr. Henway, who had always scared her with his permanent crooked frown until she'd one day caught him feeding and talking to the stray cats behind their building.

"Minä tein." (I did.) The weird kid whispered back. Madelyn wondered why he sounded so scared, if this had been his plan all along. "Me kaikki haluamme kotiin." (We all want to go home.) His voice cracked, and the being's skull tilted. It made a low whistling sound that sent shivers down Madelyn's spine, and more of the dog-like creatures began appearing - out of the walls and the floor, as if they'd been waiting there for their cue - to circle around the being like the first. They tumbled over themselves like excited puppies at dinnertime before another command from the being straightened them out.

The being moved to stand up again, and the smokey beings at its feet moved towards the children. They seemed to grow bigger, but for a few, as they sat, forming a semi-translucent 'wall' between the children and the far end of the container, where the doors and their criminal guards stood. The being pushed off as he turned and glided towards the container doors on bladed boots, stopping before the barrier with ease and raising one hand to shoo away the ice that held it shut like a bothersome fly.

"Do not look." He told the children behind him with a thick accent that Madelyn could not place. "You will be safe in just a few moments." Madelyn sat up on her knees, trying to see over the pointed ears and wagging tails of the smokey hounds as the being lowered its shoulder and bashed open the container doors, but before she could see more, a paw on her shoulder pushed her back down.

The creature left its paw draped over the girl's shoulder as the guard shouted - first in surprise, then in fear - and then the sounds from outside were suddenly muffled. Madelyn thought she heard a gunshot, then maybe a splash, and then silence. A few of the hounds turned their heads around to look at the container door, but otherwise remained still until there was a strange, muted cracking sound, and they finally broke rank to excitedly mill around throughout the confused children. Through an archway in a wall of ice that dominated the container's now-open doors, the being returned. Madelyn caught a brief glimpse of one of their guards, frozen in a block of ice like the people she'd seen on the news the last time Mr. Freeze had run amok in the city, before the wall closed itself, and the figure once more lowered himself to one knee, though now with more space between himself and the children.

"....so," The figure spoke after several seconds of silence. "I found this on one of the bad guys. Does anyone here know how to use it?" The figure held out one hand and opened it to reveal a cell phone with a cracked case sitting on his palm. He placed it gently on the ground, and slid it across to the children, where Madelyn quickly grabbed it. "You can dial 9-1-1 for the police, yes?"

"Why didn't you just call?" The girl narrowed her eyes at the figure. She wasn't sure if it was courage or overwhelming panic she could feel rising in her chest now that the more human threat to their lives was gone. "Why do we have to do it?" The figure's skull seemed to deform to give the impression of raising one eyebrow, and he held up his massive gloved hand again.

"My fingers are too big for the buttons." He replied. Madelyn paused. That hadn't been the response she'd expected, but it wasn't wrong, either. She dialed the number with shaking fingers and held the phone to her ear. One of the hounds lay down at her side and rested its head on her legs, though she could only just feel its weight.

"Hello? 9-1-1?" Madelyn stared at the creature lying on her lap, because if she looked anywhere else, this weird, freaky, hopeful dream might end. Against the floor, she could see the shadow of the being as it slid across the floor to whisper again to the weird kid. "We need the police!"

#mun's writing #[[God of the Frozen Heart(h)]] - Callahan #((not quite a prequel to the earlier piece I wrote with Cal and Gawain))#((possibly one of the many other times Callahan got summoned to Gotham))

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