Meanwhile, back in the upper part of the bar, the girls were being treated to very noisy conversation with Mr. O'Hara. It had started as a few small noises coming from below, but now they had erupted into full blown clangs and clashes, echoing through the building.
One of the rowdier customers decided to pitch in his opinion to the grizzled old owner of the pub. "Ay O'Hara! Ya best be calmin' down that bar maid of yers, before I get drunk enough to go down there and shut her up meself!" The man downed the glass of liquor in his hand, and slammed it on the table.
O'Hara cocked his head and looked away from the girls for a moment, shooting a stern glance at the man. "Well, if you'l kindly be mindin' yer own business, then..." O'Hara's speech slowed. He glanced around the bar, his pupils searching frantically for a body that they were doomed to never find. With as much as a clam demeanor as the man could muster up, he turned to the girls and asked, "...Did any of you ladies see Fiona go downstairs?"
Immediately sensing something was wrong, Heather replied, "...Yeah, Mr. O'Hara... She took Terry and headed downstairs a while ago." She tilted her head to one side. "...Something wrong? I hope that's not him down there making that noise. If so, when I get my hands on that drummer I'll..."
Heather's little speech was cut off before she would ever be able to finish. Mr. O'Hara's eyes went wide, and he muttered a faintly audible, "Oh Lord, help that boy..." Before deftly ducking below the counter and pulling out what appeared to be an axe. "You girls listen and listen good. Stay put." That's all he said before bolting across the room and through the door that Terry and Fiona had made their way through earlier.
Now Heather was genuinely freaked. She glanced over at the other two. While Diita looked a bit weired out, just as she was, Rachel was... to put it simply, mortified. There were a few moments where nobody said a word, until Diita decided to break the silence. "Rachel..." Diita said softly, looking over at the girl. "...What's going on?"
That was all it took. It was the final straw in something that Rachel was already barely able to hold back. Right then and there, the girl began to weep. "...Oh go... oh... oh..." She couldn't seem to get the words to make it clearly out of her mouth. Her nose began to run as the tears streamed down her face.
Diita placed both hands on Rachel's shoulder's. "Rachel, I love you, but if you can't calm down, I can't help out. Now, tell me what's going on." Diita stared deeply into the poor girl's eyes.
"You... you guys..." Rachel managed to sputter our. "...Sh... She's gonna kill 'im!!" The girl fell back into hysterics, grabbing Diita and clutching her close.
Heather did a double take, and leaned over closer to the two. "Rachel, what do you mean? Why would Fiona want to kill your grandpa?"
Rachel barely managed to compose herself for one more choppy sentence. "Not him!" She began to cough, trying to regain herself. "Terry!"
Diita and Heather looked at each other, as if on the same train of thought. Almost instantaneously, Diita squeezed Rachel one last time before breaking free from her embrace and rushing down the staircase that Mr. O'Hara had just taken.
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Meanwhile, it was about this time O'Hara had reached the bottom of the staircase. He could hear the noises almost shaking the room next to him. He feared for the worst, and those fears were confirmed as he reached forth to try and open the door. he jiggled the handle, but to no avail. The door was locked tight, and if his thinking was correct, possibly barricaded. This wasn't the first time O'Hara had seen something like this happen. O'Hara lifted the axe that he had kept under the counter for years. Perhaops he was a fool to think that he woudl never have to use it again, but it had been so long since the last incident, his mind had at the very least wanted to belive it would never happen again. The old man hacked away at the door, eventually making a hole big enough that he could fit about half his body through. He would have continued hacking away, but at this point he was able to see that the door wasn't barricaded. He used his foot, giving the edoor five or swift hard kicks, and the door eventually broke away from the combination of his axe and foot. What he saw when he entered the room was just as he had feared. There, a mutated Fiona sat slashing away at Terry's unconcious body, holding her dismembered head in one hand.
The old man rushed into the room, fearlessly grabbing one of the succubus' hands. "Fiona! Stop this madness, now!!" As if he had hit some trigger on the girl, she began to regain her original form. Her head returned to it's rightful place on her shoulders, and the mutations reversed themselves, returning her to being a normal, albeit naked, bar maid.
It was then that Diita found herself at the bottom of the staircase. Noticing that Fiona was naked, and that O'Hara had her by the hand, Diita knew something was obviously up. She hid herself in the doorframe and began to listen to the conversation continuing in the other room.
"I thought you had this under control, Fiona! What happened?!" Old man O'Hara gestured to the nigh-lifeless bloody body nearby.
Fiona raised a hand to her mouth, cupping it as she saw Terry up against the wall. "...Oh no... you mean... he wasn't a threat?"
O'Hara sighed and palmed his face. "He's only a lad. What was he going to do?"
Tears welled up in Fiona's eyes. "But... he knew about the girls! What if he had told someone?"
O'Hara looked at Fiona in the eyes. "Fiona, listen to me. If I tell you he's a threat, he's threat. Otherwise, you leave him alone." There was a definite hint of anger in the man's voice.
Fiona began to cry as the man reprimanded her. "I'm so sorry... I didn't know..." The girl cupped her face in shame, and began edging towards the door, before breaking into a full run and dashing out of the room.
Diita clung to the wall as the girl bolted past. The girl, very curious and very worried as to what had just taken place, peeked around the corner... and got an eyeful of Terry. Diita gasped in horror at what had happened to her friend. There were slash marks over the majority of his body, and he was bleeding profusely. His hand looked like it had been badly burnt, and he, like Fiona, was completely naked. Unfortunately for Diita, that one uncontrollable sigh was enough to get her noticed by Mr. O'Hara.
O'Hara turned, and upon seeing the girl, sighed heavily. The last thing he had wanted was for any of the girls to have to see this. "You have a listening problem, don't you, girly?" The man shook his head, and motioned for her to come into the room. "If you wan to get involved so badly, you can help me..." O'Hara pointed to Terry. "Help him." The man opened up a nearby closet, and grabbed a towel, walking over to the boy and kneeling down. Diita simply seemed to stand there in the doorway, still shocked at the events that had taken place. O'Hara shot a glance back at the girl. "He's unconcious, not dead... though he will be if I don't get some help over here quickly."
Finally, Diita nodded, and made her way over to the boy. "Here..." O'Hara siad, handing the girl the towel. "Press this up against the larger wounds against his side. Try to stop the bleeding. I'm going to give him a once over..." O'Hara proceeded to check various parts of the boy's body, slightly moving bones and joints.
Diita looked up at the man. "Sir... if you don't mind me asking, why did this happen?"
The man sighed, but never looked up from his task. "Fiona... is a woman who was posessed by a succubus. It's a long story of how and why it happened, but we ended up giving her a place to say in the pub, as long as she pulled her weight around here. Over time, she became very attatched to us, and very... protective... of your girl's little secret. On more than one occasion, she's eliminated threats to that secret who found themselves in our bar. Basically, anyone who found out was at risk..."
Diita cut him off there. "...And Terry found out."
The old man nodded. "Aye... That he did."
The girl's face hardened into a weak glare. "...Then he deserves to be like this... He had no right to go snooping around in our business..." A tear rolled down her cheek. "Stupid... Terry..."
"Make no mistake about this, lass... He wasn't snoopin' in your business. He found out by accident." The man nodded as he made note of a few broken ribs. "I told him to mind his own business... but it looks like he didn't have that choice. Once Fiona began to lure him away, he would've had no ability to resist her requests... As far as I can see, the only way he could fight back is that... somehow, she lost control of him for a bit."
Diita slammed her fist into the ground, as the tears became more and more frequent visitors, rolling down her cheek. "...Stupid..."
O'Hara shook his head. "We can't exactly get him to a hospital, unless you want to tell them exactly how he got these slash marks on him... The best thing we can do at this point is take the lad back to the house, and treat his wounds there. Believe it or not, I'll think he'll be okay... Some deep gashes, some broken ribs, but no vital damage." O'Hara stood up, and returned to the closet for another towel. The man wrapped the boy's body in the towel, and lifted him up. "Go tell the wife to bring the car around. I'm closing up the pub early tongiht."