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Tenebrae	By : Raptor6411 Category: +M through R > Resident Evil Views: 13262 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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He was changing,
though he didn�t know it yet. Something swam in his veins, rooting for a
nesting place.

But he was oblivious
now, without light to guide him.

And in the darkness,
he remembered.

___

The bed smelled strongly of beer and stale sweat, but Leon
was by now impervious to the stench, his nostrils worn clean of such
distinctions. Tipping back the bottle in his hand, he took another swig and
tirelessly flipped through channel after channel of bad daytime television.

The pain couldn�t take hold when his mind was with bad
actors on worse shows. Not as much at least.

It was in the night that he couldn�t escape it. The screams
from the city streets replaced the steady whirring of the fan and the pervading
miasma of liquor faded into the coppery tang of blood and offal. Raccoon
City came to visit him when the sun
went down. So he learned to stay up and fight the memories with bourbon and
music videos. When he was on the job paperwork did the trick. But for the time
being, that wasn�t the case.

At his particularly sappy moments Leon
thought that what he needed was a woman to wash away the pain with warm kisses.
But he didn�t have a woman so he used alcohol, and instead of a kiss on the
mouth it was a punch. It did the trick of numbing him in the absence of
kissing, though it hurt more at first and a lot more afterwards.

In a slightly drunken stupor he absently ticked off possible
solutions to his current hollow state. Ada?
She was dead. Maybe. He wasn�t sure what to think
anymore. Claire? He hadn�t talked to her in years. It was a distance enforced
by time and occupation. Hookers? Too
expensive, too dangerous. Usually too ugly. Hookers
were like ridiculously expensive Chinese food, neither were
all that filling and you�d probably want to eat both with your eyes closed.

His reverie was interrupted when the phone rang.
Laconically, he set down his bottle on a nearby coaster with a glass rattle and
picked it up, cradling it to his ear.

�Hello?�

�It�s John.� The voice was hard and fast and ever so familiar.
�Something�s come up. I need you over at the office as soon as possible.�

Leon
didn�t move. �I hate to remind you sir, but if you�ll remember I�m sort of
suspended right now-�

�Enough bullshit. That doesn�t
matter. I expect to see you here in half an hour.�

The line went dead.

___

Twenty-four minutes later Leon
was clean shaven and fully dressed, still somewhat hung-over but presentable
enough for public consumption. He made his way down the hallway as
quickly as his abused body would let him. Johnathan Trask wasn�t a man who liked to be kept waiting, and at the
moment a lot depended on whatever conversation was to follow. Leon
preferred if they didn�t start out on the wrong foot.

The halls of the Agency were not bustling or busy like the
usual hallways of a functioning office building. Instead, they were almost
always silent and empty. The Agency had no official name or premises, and there
was little in his surroundings to hint at what really went on behind the white
walls.

John�s office was just around the next corner. Leon
couldn�t help but wonder what was so urgent that he would summon a suspended
agent back for active duty. Grasping the black handle to the doorway, Leon
opened it and stepped inside.

The office was, as usual, uncomfortably frigid. John seemed
to be an uncommonly hot blooded man and the ambient temperature he kept in his
office reminded Leon
of nothing so much as a walk in fridge. Sitting down in a chair across from the
polished mahogany desk that John kept piled high with papers, he crossed his
arms in an attempt to warm himself and willed the goose bumps to leave his
skin.

John immediately focused his attention towards Leon.
�Good timing.�

Leon
cleared his throat, shifting in the chair. �You wanted to see me sir?�

�Right. I�ll cut straight to the
point, so long as you understand that this information is to never leave this
room.�

It was a standard procedure, one Leon
well knew. �As always sir.�

�As of last Friday Ashley Graham, President Graham�s
daughter, has gone missing.� John reached across the desk and picked up a
relatively thin manila folder, dropping it in front of Leon.
�She was on her way home from college in Massachusetts
to spend the weekend with her family in DC. Witnesses confirm her leaving at
the correct time with her Secret Service agents, but she never arrived.�

Leon
picked the folder up, leaving through various reports, compiled data, and
witness testimonies. He stopped at a map of the Massachusetts
area where she was last seen, red outlines and markings laying out the path she
took and the site of her disappearance.

�As you can imagine,� John continued. �This has been kept
from the media. As of yet we have received no threats or demands. Even more
disturbingly, evidence points towards this being an inside job.�

Leon
looked up. �Her Agents?�

�No, dead. If they were involved
then they were expendable. Their bodies were found in Ashley�s vehicle,
abandoned at a gas station several miles from what we believe to be the site of
the abduction.�

�Any suspects?�

�Eh, just shots in the dark.� John grunted. �With
practically everyone close to her under suspicion and nobody taking credit for
the act, we�re running blind. We have every currently active Agent working on
this, under the President�s orders. We�ll find her. But the longer it takes,
the more likely it is that she�s dead.�

Leon
was silent for a moment, before placing the map back inside the folder and
placing it back on the desk. �So where do I come in?�

�Officially, you don�t. You�re still suspended.�

Leon
just looked at him. �Then what am I doing here?�

John sighed, leaning back further in the chair and rubbing
his eyes. For the first time Leon
realized how tired he looked. �We both know you didn�t deserve the suspension,
but we also both know that I didn�t have any choice.�

Leon
grimaced. �Yeah. I know.�

�There�s an oddjob that�s come up.
I don�t have the manpower to spare right now for a full sight seeing excursion
of this nature but we can�t afford to ignore any leads, no matter how small.
Allegedly, and I do mean allegedly,
someone fitting Ashley�s description was seen in a small rural community in the
backwoods of Spain.
Normally we might ignore something like this, but we can�t this time. It was
called in by a local Policia officer, who apparently
saw her heading into the woods in the backseat of a car. Since it was a cop
this lends it some credence. Not much, but enough to where we
have no choice but to check it.�

Instantly Leon
put the pieces together. �You�re sending me on a goddamned goosechase.�

�You want to be unsuspended again? Do this, and I�ll be able
to tell the board of directors that you made yourself useful during this
crisis. Or you can go back to your apartment and stew yourself in some more
booze.�

Leon
said nothing.

�You�ll just be going to ask some questions,� John
continued. �Take a look around, talk to a few people. That�s all.�

�How did this officer know to look for her?�

�He didn�t. But apparently he watches the news enough to
recognize someone who at least looks like her. Like I said, we can�t pass this
up, even if it seems like the best thing to do.�

�And what if I find her?�

�You won�t.�

�And what if I find her?� Leon
asked again, more insistent this time.

John let out a breath. �Then you call in for backup and we�ll
get both of you out of there, but trust me- you�re not going to find her. This
is just a favor from me to you.�

�Well, then thank you sir,� Leon
said, and he meant it. Being suspended was becoming more than he could bear. �Any information on the region?�

John reached behind him and pulled another file from a wall
slot. �Interesting enough locale. It�s a fairly large
forested area on the edge of a large lake, nestled by the Seirra
Morena. Known as the Salazar
Estates. Apparently the land has been owned by the same family for
centuries.�

Leon
frowned. �I thought you said there was a community involved.�

�Right. The land is privately owned
but still hosts a fairly large population, a holdover from the Feudal system.
Obviously the inhabitants are no longer indentured and are subject to national
laws, but it�s still a strange, reclusive place. Very backward, an isolated farming community with a sort of Amish twist.�
John paused, letting Leon
digest the information. �The Salazars own all that
plus a good portion of the lake and a large island that�s in it. The island
once housed a fresh water processing plant, but that was closed down in the
seventies by the Salazars, no record as to why.�

Leon
looked at John, puzzled. �That�s all?�

John shrugged. �Like I said, reclusive.
It may be something akin to Amish but it�s hardly a tourist trap, they don�t
like the media or strangers over there. The area is poorly mapped at best, but
I managed to pull a satellite and get you some rough recon, the shots are in
the folder.�

Leon
leafed through it until he found the transparencies, taking them out and
putting the other contents back on the desk. He held them up to the light for
closer inspection.

�You can see they�ve been doing some work on the area.
There�s not much recognizable change on the mainland but some heavy
construction can be seen on the island, looks like they�re bringing at least
one part of their little kingdom up to speed. Some of this stuff is just plain
bizarre, look at sheet A-6.�

Leon
held up the appropriate sheet. �Look there,� John pointed. �They�ve made a sort
of ringed clearing in the woods, but there�s nothing in it. Just
an empty sand pit. There�s some other really strange architecture.�

Leon
put his finger to something running over a length of chasm. �What�s that?�

�Mountain tramway. Built back in the fifties at the same time as the water plant.
A lot more people were moving through there back then, so it was constructed to
provide easier access to the more elevated regions.�

Lowering the sheet, Leon
eyed him. �The homework has certainly been done for such a throwaway mission.�

John nodded, sighing again. �We can�t let this one slip by
us. No matter how seemingly unimportant the lead, we need to do this right.�

Leon
pulled out another sheet. �Wow. Is that a castle?�

�Right,� John reached into the folder Leon
had left on the desk and scanned over a paper that he withdrew from it. �The Salazar Castle. Look at the lines, you can see
where it�s been expanded over the years. The place is one massive maze of art
and stonework. A lot of historians would kill to get a look at it, but the Salazars have never allowed it.�

�Rich family?�

�Extremely. Cortez is the most
famous conqueror of Mexico,
but he wasn�t the only man to grab for the gold. By the time the Aztecs were
well and truly subjugated the Salazars had brought
back enough of the stuff for a hundred lifetimes. On top of that, the part of
the mountain range that they own is also rich in precious minerals,
there are extensive mines on the property.�

After a few more seconds of browsing, Leon
decisively closed the folder. �And the real question, why would they have
Ashley?�

�Not so much as a single clue. But considering that the
sighting was alleged in the highest degree, I don�t think we�ll ever find out.�

�When do I leave?�

�Tomorrow morning.�

___

Sloughing from the
blackness Leon rose to the surface.

___
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Tenebrae