Tugging at my undead Heartstrings II: The Belle Tolls for Thee

Tugging at my Undead Heartstrings II - The Belle, it tolls for thee

Chapter 2 – Investigations

Manehattan
3 days later

Octavia paced around her new one bedroomed apartment in Manehattan. She and Vinyl Scratch had been assigned to this city as it was a perfect location for both of them to set up and ply their cover stories while being able to keep an eye out for trouble. Manehattan had a number of formal concert halls, and gala occasions that would call for Octavia’s skills, while there was also a developing club scene that Vinyl could blend into easily enough.

While the apartment was clean enough and reasonably upmarket, it was pitifully small, and meant that the two of them would have almost no privacy; they even had to share a sleeping room, which didn’t bother Vinyl. The unicorn had been almost insufferably upbeat about all of this, regarding it more as a game or an adventure than as actual work. Octavia knew that her mood wouldn’t last much longer, not once they actually start dealing with the bottom rung of pony life.

Finally, Octavia had had enough. She walked over to where Vinyl had already begun taking their small stereo system apart and yanked the white mare up off the ground. “Come along, Vinyl. We have work to do here.”

Vinyl looked at her as if she had just spoken in another language, her magenta eyes scrunching up and cocking her head to the side. “But we just got here like an hour ago. We haven’t even unpacked yet.”

Octavia gave Vinyl a harsh look, directing all her frustrations at having been assigned a student into this one glare. “We are not being paid by the crown to sit around and tinker with toys. If you wanted to do that, you could have requested to be assigned to Blast Radius. Now come on, we have somepony to meet.”

This wasn’t exactly true, but Octavia did have somepony whom she wanted to at least look in on. It had been many years since Octavia had set hoof in Manehattan, and she wasn’t sure how intact her old network of contacts would be. The pony she had always gone to, Fast Eddie he liked to call himself, had long since retired from the game, but Octavia knew that one never really retired from his particular line of business.

Octavia grabbed a pair of saddlebags and filled the pouches with a reasonable supply of bits; more than enough to get the wheels of information flowing if it came to that. Fast Eddie was reliable, but he didn’t come cheap. Vinyl followed Octavia, more out of curiosity than actual desire. This was going to be her first actual field work for the Order, and Octavia was going to keep a close eye on her to see how she did. At the first sign that she couldn’t handle it, Octavia was dumping her flank and sending her packing back to Canterlot. Then Celestia would see that she didn’t need a student or a partner.

The pair exited their apartment and walked out into the shining streets of Upper Manehattan. The apartment they had been provided with was in the upper class areas of the city; anything less and it would have looked suspicious for a musician of Octavia’s calibre. Despite the fact that it was just a cover for her, Octavia was a fully trained and competent cellist, a skill she had made sure to keep up with. While she would have been more than happy to live in a crackerbox apartment that had nothing but a bed and a roof, she knew that she had to maintain her image, lest she lose one of her greatest assets to the order; namely her ability to move through the upper circles of Equestrian society.

Despite its distance from the capital of Canterlot, Manehattan shared many architectural designs with the royal city. Maybe out of a desire to be talked about in the same sentence, or possibly just a product of some of the same designers working on both developments, the town of Manehattan was built from glittering marble and edged in gold and purple.

Just like Canterlot though, Manehattan’s gleaming spires and high-rises served another purpose: to cover up the rot that infested the core. Under the rich socialites and the glittering façade, there was a starving underclass or ponies that didn’t have a bit or home to their name. Octavia knew this place well, or at least she used to. It was here that she had tracked down and captured two vamponies who had escaped her many years ago. There wasn’t much of a progression from rich to poor in this town. All one had to do was turn down the wrong street to find a pony desperate to do almost anything to put food on the table.

Octavia nearly dragged Vinyl through several of Manehattan’s back streets, looking for one bar in particular. It was in one of the seedier parts of town, a place that Octavia would never willingly set hoof in if she had a choice, but it looked like Vinyl would be right at home here. Run down buildings and rotting trash piles sat everywhere. Beggars and errant children sat on every corner. Many of them ran up to Octavia, hooves out and pleading for bits or scraps of food. Many of them quailed at a harsh look from Octavia, fleeing back to whatever dumpster or box they called home, though a few of the braver, or at least more desperate ones remained.

Octavia rummaged through pocket in her saddle bag and pulled out a few gleaming bits. She showed them to the ponies clamouring at her and many of them fell silent. A few tried to grab the coins from her hoof, though Octavia expected that and quickly withdrew her hoof, so that they swiped at nothing but air. “Fast Eddie,” she said. Two of the beggars understood who she was asking for and pointed down an alley way. A sign on the wall indicated a bar was located down the alley and Octavia recognised it as one she had met her contact in once, a long time ago.

Octavia tossed the bits to the crowd of beggars and they swarmed on the small coins as one, shoving and pushing at each other in an attempt to grab the money. Octavia shook her head at the desperation, but kept moving. Vinyl however was rooted to the spot, watching the display with a look of horror on her face. Octavia had taken three steps before she noticed Vinyl still standing there and turned back to pull her along.

“First time seeing this?” she asked, “The level of desperation that a pony will stoop to for even the slightest chance. In some ways, death would be a kindness to the ponies here. They have their uses though, as you will learn in a moment or two.”

“It’s not that,” Vinyl replied, “That was me many years ago. I ran away from home when I was still a filly. My father was more interested in making money that he was in me or my mother, so I left him for a new life. I was convinced that I would be able to make it on my own. I wound up in the gutter, right where these ponies are now. I got lucky and father took me back, but not before I experienced the worst the pony kind has to offer. I did things that I’m not proud of to survive.”

Octavia motioned for Vinyl to keep moving. “The best thing you can do for them now is to give them a purpose, make them work for you. We are going to meet an old contact of mine, Fast Eddie. He ran the homeless network the last time I was in town, and he should be able to give us some info on what is happening around the city.”

Vinyl nodded and the pair of them entered into the bar at the end of the alley. At once, they were assaulted by the smells of cheap booze and even cheaper company. The place was an absolute dive; peeling paint and cracked wooden walls. Vermin openly scurried around the tables and legs of the patrons. It was the kind of place that you came to when you had grown bored with life, and were looking for nothing but the oblivion that came at the bottom of a glass.

Octavia slid smoothly though the few ponies that were in the bar. Most of their were either too far gone to even notice her, and the few that did moved away from the sight of her obviously groomed and cared for coat. Here was a pony who clearly didn’t belong here, and they instinctively moved away from that. Vinyl walked in after her, her eyes open and observing everything she could. She had seen places like this before, and they were all the same. Without even glancing around, she could make out who the troublemakers would be; that there was a hooker in the corner currently trying to interest a john and that there was one pony at the bar unlikely to see his next sunrise.

At the bar, Octavia ordered a whiskey for herself, insisting on a clean glass and slapped down an extra helping of bits to go along with it. “Eddie,” was all she said. The barkeep pocketed the bits before they had even had a chance to stop rolling around and he nodded towards a booth in the back. Octavia could make out several ponies clustered around what looked to be a fairly young stallion, one who was clearly not the pony she was looking for. Octavia turned back to the barkeep and repeated her demand, this time with a little bit more force. Once again the barkeep pointed at the stallion in the booth.

“Eddie don’t come round here no more,” he said, his voice barely more than a deep growl, “He’s six feet under; caught the short end of the long arm of the law down a dark alley a couple years back. That pony in the booth, Shady, is the guy you want to talk to now. Except Shady there, he don’t talk to nobody unless they got something that interest him.

“He’ll see me,” Octavia replied. She was confident that she could get what she wanted to know out this new stallion. It was a snag in her plans though. She had known Eddie, knew his methods and trusted him, at least as far as she could trust an underground figure who only worked for her as long as the money remained good. She left the bar and approached the booth, making directly for the pony seated at the centre.

Without hesitation, a burly earth pony, one who had clearly been hired as muscled stepped into her path, raising up a hoof to block her path. “No one sees the boss without his say so. You just best turn around, pretty mare, before we decide to have a little fun with you.”

Octavia smiled sweetly at the pony blocking her. ‘The bigger they are’ she thought to herself before she struck. Within half a second, she rose to her back hooves, grabbed the muscle’s outstretched hoof and twisted it to the right, spinning to add in extra force. A sudden snap could be heard in the bar, and the muscular pony fell to the ground, clutching his now clearly broken hoof of his body. Octavia dropped back down to her hooves and stepped over his writhing body to sit down at the other end of the booth, facing the pony she had been told was Shady.

He leaned forward in his seat, resting the tips of his hooves together as he did so. He took one quick look at the pony he had hired to protect him from exactly this kind of thing. With a curt nod to his other associates, he turned back to face Octavia, who was once again the picture of pleasantness. Shady’s other ponies picked up the muscle pony and dragged him out of the bar, leaving Octavia and Shady alone. Vinyl was keeping a respectful distance away, cowed by Octavia’s sudden outburst of violence. It was one thing to know that Octavia was a deadly hunter and a capable combatant; it was another thing entirely too actually see it.

“If you wanted me dead, I would not still be sitting here; that much is clear. You want something. Very well, I’m listening,” Shady said. He didn’t appear perturbed at all by Octavia’s display; it was as if such an occurrence was daily routine for him. Octavia matched his own stare with hers, eager to get down to business. She needed to know if this Shady was even the pony she wanted to talk to, plus she had to get his measure. Behind her, Vinyl walked off to the bar to grab herself a drink. She had a feeling she was going to need it shortly.

“I’ll get straight to the point, I’m looking for information and I’m hoping that you are the one to supply it,” Octavia said, not wasting any time. Small talk was for nobles and dignitaries; she had business to conduct.

“Info ain’t cheap round here, darlin’. Everything has its price. Tell me what you need, and maybe I can help you. That is, providing you got something that interests me back.”

Octavia withdrew her bag of bits and dumped most of what was left on the table between them. Behind her, Vinyl had reappeared, a glass of something fizzy in her magical grasp. “I’m looking for anything that seems strange in this town, but not just unusual strange. Ponies vanishing, unexplained mutilations, possibly even classed as a dog attack,” she said calmly. As she spoke, she saw Shady’s eyes light up.

‘He knows something’ she thought. Shady quickly recovered however, mastering his face in a second. With a push he returned the bits to Octavia’s side of the table, a move which confused Octavia.

“Sorry, doll. Information like that is way out of this price range. I’m gonna need something a bit more solid than this.”

Octavia raged inside. She wasn’t getting anywhere with this new stallion. She didn’t have anything she could use as leverage on him, nor did she have anywhere enough bits on her to grease his pockets, not after she had had to bribe the bar tender. She was just about ready to resort to breaking his legs when Vinyl stepped up next to her, slipping on a pair of deep purple shades that Octavia had no idea she had been carrying. She tapped Octavia on the shoulder and leaned down to whisper into her ear.

“Relax, Octy. I got this one.” Vinyl pulled herself into the seat next to Octavia and levelled her gaze at Shady. Her face was impassive behind her glasses; they were oversized and took up most of her face.

Shady instantly turned his attention to the newcomer. After a few seconds his eyes lit up in recognition and he became totally enraptured by her. Octavia noticed his eyes begin to mist over, as if they were no longer getting or sending information to Shady’s brain. Shady also began breathing slowly and regularly, becoming very limp in his seat. Octavia recognised the signs of magic being used, but she hadn’t seen anything like this before.

Lifting a shot of booze up to her lips that she had been holding with her magic since she arrived at the booth, Vinyl leaned forward and began to talk. “Yo, my man,” she began, “why you gotta be like this? All we want is a name. You do that for me, and who knows; maybe we can help each other out. I’m sure that I can find something you need.”

Shady seemed to freeze for a moment or two before he suddenly jerked and began speaking rapidly, “There is another bar on the other side of town; they call it the Wet Mutt. I hear that there are things going on in there that ain’t quite right: Ponies that aren’t really ponies, howling during a full moon. Sometimes a pony goes in, but he don’t come out again.”

Vinyl game him a cold, humourless smile. “That’s all we wanted. Now, you go up to the bar, buy everypony in here a round, and then go home; bang your ho, or whatever it is you do at night. When you wake up tomorrow, you won’t remember a word of this, understood?”

Shady nodded slowly, clearly under some kind of trance. Vinyl wasn’t finished though, “And the next time we need some info,” she indicated Octavia and herself, “you will give it to us without question, and at a fair price. Now get out of here, before I make you do something really embarrassing.”

Shady nearly leapt out of his seat, trotting up to the bar with nearly mechanical movements. Blinking a couple of times, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was doing, but couldn’t stop it either, he pulled out a couple of coins and put them down on the table. “Barkeep, a round for everypony here, on me.” He turned to look at the prostitute in the corner, who had given up trying to entice a new client for the moment. “Hey Orchard, get over here. We’re leaving.” With that he simply left the bar, with the prostitute, Orchard following him meekly. Vinyl watched them go and burst out laughing. Octavia was just frozen in place. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen.

With Shady gone, and the booth to themselves, Vinyl took her glasses off and turned to face Octavia again, a superior smirk on her face. Octavia was frozen in place, her eyes not blinking and her jaw hanging loosely open. Vinyl shrugged and quickly picked up her glasses in her magic. After a second they seemingly vanished, caught in a small space fold. After a few seconds of Octavia’s staring blankly, Vinyl lifted up a hoof and closed her jaw. Octavia blinked a few times after than and returned to the present. Vinyl began chuckling to herself at the sight of Octavia flailing like a fish out of water.

“Wh-w-w-what was that?” Octavia asked, “How did you do that.”

Vinyl stopped laughing and turned to face Octavia. Her horn glowed again and this time Octavia could see Vinyl’s eyes begin to glow as well, pulsating bright and dim in a regular rhythm. Octavia felt herself drawn to those eyes, like she was caught in a whirlpool. “Tell me, why you don’t like me?” Vinyl asked her. To Octavia’s ears, her voice sounded distorted with a slight echo.

As she spoke, Octavia could hear something whispering in the back of her head. A calm soothing voice that promised her everything would be alright if she just told this mare before her what she wanted to know. Try as she might, she couldn’t tear herself away from Vinyl’s glowing eyes; it was like looking into the proverbial abyss. Two bottomless pits that seemed to draw everything into them, including Octavia’s will to resist.

“I-I don’t like you because you are unprofessional. I actually said that you wouldn’t last past your first week out here. You seem to treat everything like a game and you aren’t dedicated to the cause like I am. You would only slow me down; make me a less efficient hunter. Plus you represent the death of proper music with your synthetic electronic junk.” Octavia couldn’t help herself; the words just came pouring out of her. She had no control over what she was saying, but it was all unfettered truth.

Once she was finished speaking, Vinyl released her spell and her eyes ceased glowing. Octavia heard the whispers praise her for being such a good pony and vanish as well. She slumped forwards on the table as if she was exhausted after running for miles.

“What…was…that?” she asked eventually.

Vinyl leaned forward and handed Octavia the remains of her drink. The relaxants in the booze would help her recover. “A little trick I learned when I was young; a combination of light hypnosis and some auditory hallucinations. Those whispers you heard were very much real, but carefully modulated to appear as if they were in your own head.” Vinyl paused to indicate her cutie mark, a combined pair of quavers. “This doesn’t just mean that I am good at music; it means that I can create sound. What you heard just then was me using a combination of magicks to convince your subconscious to tell me what I wanted to know. When I did it to Shady, I hid my eyes behind my glasses; the lenses are specially crafted to work with that spell, and I also was levitating a glass to cover my horn’s aura.”

Octavia took a moment to process that. “That’s impressive,” she admitted, and it was. Vinyl had clearly shown more forethought and preparation that Octavia had originally credited her with.

“It only works on those who aren’t prepared for it. If you know it’s coming, then the suggestions don’t work; and the more that it is used on a single pony, the more they become resistant to it.” Vinyl paused for a second before levelling her eyes at Octavia again. This time there was no magical glow, just her natural magenta. “We are going to have a talk about this later on, Octavia. I don’t like the fact that you don’t seem to have even given me a chance.”

Octavia was about to retort when she saw the look on Vinyl’s face. She was all business right now. Octavia was put off slightly by the look; this Vinyl was clearly not the pony she had met before.

‘Maybe there is hope for her afterall’ she thought as the pair of them got up from the booth to leave. Their next stop would be to stake out this Wet Mutt bar and see if there was anything to the rumours that Shady had heard. If not, they were back to square one.

Fillydelphia

In the woods that bordered Fillydelphia, the single deer never stood a chance. While it had been alert for predators or monsters that would be interested in trying to eat it, it had failed to notice the far more dangerous creature closing in on it; a pair of creatures in fact.

Sweetie Belle moved slow and kept low to the ground, allowing her new hunting instincts to take over. She could see the deer through the trees as if it had been wearing neon yellow, could hear the steady beating of its heart as it grazed from the succulent grasses under its hooves. The thick musk of its coat assailed her nose, creating a trail almost as clear as if it had been carved into the ground. Slowly, she moved forward, an invisible threat among the high bushes, pushing forward ever so slightly until she reached the distance when she could lash out and strike.

The deer didn’t notice her approach, and it would be the last mistake that it would ever make. With all the speed and ferocity of a snake, Sweetie Belle lunged forwards and tackled the deer to the ground. It struggled against the unknown attacker, but Sweetie held it fast and in one motion, bared her fangs wide and sank them into its neck. A burst of rich warm blood filled her mouth, and Sweetie swallowed every drop she could manage, marvelling at the sweet taste. It was as if every one of her favourite foods had been combined into one perfect liquid and she couldn’t get enough of it.

With every mouthful she drank, the deer struggled less and less until it finally stopped moving at all. Unable to drain anything further from the body, Sweetie Belle released it and turned to look at the other pony who had been watching her. Her sister, Rarity had been tasked with teaching her how to hunt, now that they had arrived in their new home. The woods outside Fillydelphia made for a good hunting ground, as plenty of animals roamed freely there and as it was generally empty of other ponies, the chances of them being observed were slim.

Rarity nodded approvingly at Sweetie, indicating the deer at her hooves, “Well done, Sweetie Belle. You are getting better at that, though,” Rarity paused for a moment and pointed at Sweetie’s coat, “You made a bit of a mess.”

Sweetie looked down to see that her pristine white coat was now marred with some spilt blood. Rarity leaned in and licked up a quick drip of the crimson liquid, sighing with delight as she tasted it. “Delicious,” she remarked. “You will need to go and clean up before we head back to home. We passed a river not too far back, and it should be deep enough for you to get a good soak. You go clean up while I dispose of the deer’s body. Don’t take too long though, as I still want to visit the fabric store before it closes.”

Sweetie nodded and made her way towards the river that they had passed while stalking the deer. Behind her, she heard Rarity’s horn begin to glow, and she knew that Rarity was dissolving the body. Rarity had found that she could use her telekinetics in new ways over the last few years, and one of the new uses was to create overlapping fields that could crush an object as if it were in a vice. Once she was finished with her spell, there would be nothing left of the deer, save for an unrecognisable mass, and even that wouldn’t last too long. Some predator would come along eventually and find a free, if slightly dry meal.

Reaching the river, Sweetie looked for the deepest place and jumped in. The water was freezing; it was just coming out of winter and like Ponyville, Fillydelphia also didn’t use magic to clear up the snow. Small chunks of ice still floated in the water, and Sweetie Belle aimed for a relatively clear space. Landing with a splash, Sweetie quickly ducked under the surface, trying hard not to notice the dagger like feel of the frigid water. The sensation went away as her body temperature quickly dropped until it matched the water around her.

Her hooves touched the bottom of the river, and Sweetie looked up. She was about two inches under the surface, and she could see clearly the river bank around her. With her magic, she grabbed a small patch of silt and used that to scrub herself clean of the evidence she had accidentally splattered herself with earlier. The scrub felt good on her body, and she was quickly cleaned of all the remaining blood. She had managed to get to it before it began to dry, so it wasn’t a challenge to get it out. Even if she had unable to get it out, she could have cast an illusion spell to cover it up, but that would have been wasteful.

It wasn’t until about two minutes later that Sweetie realised that she hadn’t felt the need to breathe yet. While she knew that she didn’t need to breathe air anymore, the reality of it still stunned her at times. She hadn’t yet actually tried to explore the limits of her new durability, though Lyra had told her once of how Bon-Bon had survived and healed back from a fall that should have killed her within an hour of having been turned. Maybe, once she had learned a bit more about control, she would have to experiment a bit and find out just how much punishment she could take now.

Something hard splashed into the water and wacked the top of Sweetie’s head. She looked up to see Rarity looking back down at her with a concerned expression on her face. Sweetie Belle pushed up off the riverbed and rose back to the surface of the water, breaking it horn first like a spire of rock bursting out of the ground. Rarity was waiting for her and she had a look of impatience on her face. Sweetie Belle realised that she must have taken longer that she though to get clean.

“Took you long enough; I was starting to get worried,” Rarity began. Sweetie Belle lowered her head in apology, falling back into the old habit of the little sister. Part of her mind protested, saying that they were now equals. It was something that she had never quite gotten used to, but she would have to shortly.

“I’m sorry, sis, I guess I lost track of time under the water,” she said, contrite. Sweetie hoped that Rarity would still have time to pick out some fabric. She had plans to open up a new dressmakers shop so that the five of them would have some income to help them blend it. The Order of the Silver Suns provided a small stipend for them, but Rarity had quickly pointed out that this was going to be their home for potentially some time, and they should make it look as such.

Rarity sighed but smiled weakly, “it’s ok, Sweetie Belle. I think we all did something like that at one point or another. It takes some getting used to, not having to eat or breathe. Now come along; we can still make Furriers if we hurry.”

Sweetie nodded once and the two of them began to fall into step next to each other. As they passed through the woods, they saw the evidence of the coming spring beginning to bloom. Small buds heralded the growth of flowers, a few shoots of new grass were beginning to push up through the hard packed dirt. A very pregnant deer caught sight of the two and turned tail to run into the woods. Rarity saw it but let it go. She didn’t hurt pregnant animals; it was a rule that they had all agreed on a long time ago and she was going to make sure that Sweetie Belle knew that such animals were off limits.

She was about to turn and tell Sweetie Belle about her personal rules for the hunt, when she caught the scent of something else. Something that she had only smelt a few times before, but she would remember for the rest of time; something that she had hoped Sweetie Belle would be spared until she was at least a little bit older. Beside her, she could tell that Sweetie could smell it too.

Sweetie turned at the unknown smell. She didn’t know what it was that was approaching, but it appeared that Rarity did, as she quickly adopted a defensive stance before Sweetie Belle. “Get behind me and stay there,” Rarity said, somewhat redundant as Sweetie was already behind her.

“What’s going on,” Sweetie asked her sister. “What’s coming?”

Rarity took another good sniff of the air before turning her head slightly, “Smell that, it’s the smell of dead flesh and it’s moving this way. Sweetie Belle, we have another vampony headed this way, and quickly.”