Morgan glanced at Malone, her hands still balled into fists and gathering in Eleanor’s jacket with white-knuckled anger. She was used to living a life of suspicion, but this particular betrayal cut much deeper than she had expected. The Group, its members, and even its mysterious benefactors were supposed to be helping mortals, to defend them when they didn’t even know that something was with an intent to do harm. That was the reason she had sought them out in the first place - well, one of the reasons, at any rate. That was the trouble with being a monster with a conscience; you knew all too well what monsters were capable of.

And now here she was. Eleanor had crossed the line that Morgan had strained against for her entire life, and she’d done it without needing to, and now someone who didn’t deserve it might be damaged forever. Not only that, but the Group was in danger, and no matter what was going to happen, they would need the skills of a Practitioner of the Art. That meant that, at least for now, they would have to work together, they would have to be side by side. Or, at least, two sides, side by side. Malone turned to walk toward the house, and Morgan pulled Eleanor an inch closer.

“You’re supposed to be better than this, Eleanor,” she said in the woman’s ear, her voice a velvet-lined hiss, “You’re supposed to be better than me.”  Then she stood and straightened, letting Eleanor’s jacket go and turning away herself.

The Lachallan House stretched into the darkening sky above her, the locks and chains on the door already having been bypassed by someone else in the Group. There were others already inside, the doors gaping open and showing the dust of at least a decade over every surface in the house. Morgan put her hands in her pockets and made her way up the stairs, trying to suppress a shiver that ran down he back that had nothing to do with the rapidly chilling air.

She felt herself coming a little unraveled, the tight control she kept over herself shaken not only by Tragellan’s behavior but by the scope and depth of whatever had been waiting for them at the airport. These...sorcerors, or whatever they were, had managed to tap into some kind of real power, something with a depth that she hadn’t expected and hadn’t seen in so long that she’d hoped to never see its kind again. The car chase alone - what would people think? And, for that matter, why weren’t there any police cars coming or a helicopter hovering over the house? The implications were more than a little troubling.

Morgan nudged the door open with her foot, keeping her hands resolutely in her pockets. She already felt like there was too much to process and the last thing she needed to do was touch something in here, at least for the next few minutes. Through the door, she sawfootprints in the dust, but it only took a moment to see that they were only those of the Group’s - or, in other words, nothing out of the ordinary, or at least nothing that made footprints.. She closed her eyes, shook her head, swallowed down a thick feeling in the back of her throat, and turned back to the car, making her way to the others clustered around Holt.

“Let’s get her inside,” Morgan said, “There’s a parlor off the main room here, with a fainting couch. It’ll get her off the ground and in the light, somewhere Tragellan can take a look at her. Then maybe we can figure out what’s going on.”

She looked at Kennedy, and saw the worry on her face, “This place isn’t…it isn’t good,” Morgan said after a few moments, “I think I know what you saw. It’s much worse than that, but if we stay on the first floor, there’s a lot more that’s…well. Not normal, but safer.”

Malone was standing, which surprised Morgan a little - whatever the totem mask had done seemed to be working, anyway. She thought about offering the woman an arm to lean on while she made her way into the house but - no. Morgan didn't need the after-images of whatever the tiki had done to Malone in her psyche and right now, she wasn't entirely sure what would happen if she touched Malone's skin, accidentally or otherwise. She was, suddenly, aware of the thinness of the jacket she had around her shoulders and her skin prickled in reaction to something that had nothing to do with the chilly breeze.

She watched Manny and Leon carry Holt with all the care they could manage, which was more than Morgan thought. Running on memories and with almost automatic steps, she guided them to a door that hadn’t been opened in decades, pushed it open with a creak. The parlor beyond had been painted in tones that, over time, faded to various shades of ‘alarming,’ but the springs and cushions could still manage. Eleanor fit on a fainting couch and only overflowed it a little, and there were pillows to prop up her head, her eyes open but unseeing. Morgan moved back to the door, and gingerly flicked a light switch, standing well back. With a pop, a crackle, and a couple of fizzles of instantly-blown bulbs, lamps came on in the parlor and filled the place with the warm glow of incandescent light. All the dust, spiderwebs, and everything else a neglected property accrues were thrown into warm relief, but nothing leapt or scuttled out to attack them.

In the light, Tagellan moved to examine Holt, and Morgan turned away from the woman - or, rather, everything she reminded her of at the moment. She could feel the other members of the Group’s eyes on her, the questions that were hanging in the air, drawn tight and incandescent.

Morgan drew in a breath, blew it out slowly. She didn't turn around to face the other members of the Group, her eyes closed, memories from decades ago flowing back through her mind.

"All right. We probably shouldn't stay here long, although I can't imagine who might come to look for us," she said. "This place was the headquarters for the Lachallan Society, and it's been in evidence with the FBI for...a very long time. Officially, it's still in the custody of the Bureau, but...well. There's been some mistake with the paperwork, and while the bills are still getting paid and someone comes in once every so often to check on the place, I should expect that almost nobody at the Bureau [i]knows[/i] that this place is still on the books." She cleared her throat, "I should know, because I'm the one that did it, and I'm very thorough when I want to be. We'll probably be safe here for a few days at least, but I also don't know if we'll want to stay here that long."

"Most of the worst things that happened here were upstairs. I'm not going to guess which one Kennedy found, but I will say that what's up there...well. There's are reasons that-" Morgan's voice hitched, and she swallowed, "that the Bureau - that [i]I[/i] - got involved."

There. That was it. The closest she'd come to admitting the truth, and the closest she'd come to telling anyone in so, so long. She felt her shoulders tense up, felt tears burn at the corners of her eyes. Not tears of shame or anger, but of frustration of what she was certain was going to be a drowning inevitability. Someone would ask, and she'd long since resigned herself to telling the truth: She [i]was[/i] one of the things that went bump in the night. She was the kind of thing that the Group - and the Bureau, and the mercenaries - hunted down. There would be consequences, and a long life had told her to prepare for the worst. So far, she hadn't been disappointed. 

Would she run? She didn't know. She wouldn't hurt them, certainly. There were other things at stake here, and the Group would need one another far more than they would need Morgan, she was sure. But she also had no intention of being killed by a Tiki mask, no desire to return to the crushing void behind the mind of mortalkind. She flexed her fingers, and closed her eyes.

"I don't know what happened on the highway," Morgan said, "That...thing that chased us. It attacked Malone, and I'm going to guess that stabbing her wasn't the only thing it did. And we need to find out how they knew we'd be here, how much we've been set up." Morgan turned her head a little, just enough to put Tragellan in her peripheral vision, "I'm concerned that this may not be the first time Holt's mind has been invaded. Whoever these people are, they had Holt's sister. They had her blood, and they clearly have a Practitioner among them, or something that's channelling power through them. Making a link wouldn't be out of the question, even while we were on the plane."

She took in another breath, but blew it out in a slow stream instead of speaking further. What came next would be...what came next. They were safe, for the moment, and together, for the moment. There were too many questions, the air was too thick with secrets, and there was too much that wasn't what it seemed to be. Maybe with a little time, they could see a way forward. Maybe they'd find that way together. 

Or maybe the next thing she knew, Morgan would have to contend with a silver spike in her spine. 

It wouldn't be the first time.