[center][h3]Loom: Midtown Swait District[/h3]
[i]Day 2, Evening, 2254[/i]
Roanne, Zadkiel, Ian[/center]

"Roanne. It's been too long." 

[i]Stupid[/i]. The smile Jasper's voice brought to her lips flinched into a wince as her free hand grasped the quickly-soaking spot on her side. “Hey, you. Please tell me you have time for an appointment right about now.”

Silent for a moment, the irony of the situation was lost on neither of the two men on the other end. "I take it there's a reason this can't wait until tomorrow." Jasper offered neutrally as he straightened and tilted his head to the ceiling, the better not to have to watch Ricket's growing mirth and to keep his voice and patience level. "Are you in trouble?"

She laughed--or rather, began to before the mirthful jerk of her chest made the claw in her side spark with pain. Her breath caught, carefully silenced before she answered. "Maybe a little. I've got three gangsters, a corpse, and less blood than I'd like. How fast can you get here?"

From where he knelt, Ricket couldn't help but play the peanut gallery.

"Listen, if you've got other plans I can always just--"

"Shush." Raising his finger once more pointedly to silence the man in chains, who was very nearly cackling, Jasper kept his eyes pointedly on the ceiling as his mind ran through a few basic calculations. "That depends where you are and how seriously I am needed personally."

She snorted, half amused and half insulted that such a situation didn't garner his immediate attention. "I'm not interrupting a date, am I? Because if you think my ass isn't worth whatever you're getting over there, I'm going to rip this thorn out of my side and make it [i]yours[/i]."

"Is that a [i]woman[/i]?" Rickets was in stitches, now, actually laughing. It echoed around the chamber, the demon grinning up to his captor--anything that threw this asshole off his game was a victory in his book.  "Are you telling me a freak like you has a girlfriend?"

"A good friend." Jasper corrected pointedly, looking back down to the demon with eyes that might even have been slightly narrowed in irritation. "And my relationship with Roanne is none of your business. Now--"

"So you're in a relationship, then."

Closing his eyes, Jasper offered a long-suffering sigh. "Alba?" The laughing on the other end of the phone was replaced by the wet packing sound of a fist on flesh and flesh on the floor, a distant wet cough not entirely dissimilar from Roanne's own. Jasper returned to the phone with a roll of his eyes.

"I'm sorry, my guest is being rude. Where are you?"

Roanne couldn't help but smile, though it was short lived as she stumbled to rest her good side against the alley wall. "God, what sort of nonsense are you up to? Two-hundred East and Beckstreet, last I checked. In an alley across from... a pawn shop, looks like. The boys aren't going anywhere, if you were looking for som—ngh! Some new redemption project. Things are getting worse, Jasper. I was set up."

"That can be discussed shortly enough."

By now Ricket was getting used to lying facedown on the concrete floor. With the massive man's foot in his back crushing the air from his lungs (and threatening to break more than one of his ribs in the process), he didn't have enough room to breathe let alone taunt the man in white who was currently rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

"Stay out of sight, I'll arrive with assistance shortly. Do [I]not[/I] leave the alley and do [I]not[/I] draw attention to yourself. I'm on my way."

Rather than give her time to interrupt a witty quip with some injury-related noise, Jasper swiped the call and let out a well-held sigh. Of course she would get herself into some trouble that just so happened to demand his attention in the middle of something. Why wouldn't she? Handing the phone back to Alba, who stepped off the demon and slid it back into his jacket's breast pocket, he turned and made for the door.

"Wait, are you kidding me?" Ricket growled past the coughing fit he was having trying to suck the air back into his lungs. "You can't just leave me like this!"

"I'm sorry. I'll return soon enough and appreciate your patience." Jasper said without looking, his mind obviously on other things. Alba fell silently into step just behind him, moving ahead only to pry open the hatch that served as the chamber door. "In the meantime, I invite you to reflect upon the ill that has come to the world as a result of your actions and know that shortly you serve instead as the force of good that I know you are capable of being."

"You can't do this!" Rickets shouted, trying to haul himself up against the chains and reaching their limits for the umpteenth time that evening. "You can't fucking leave me here! I swear, when you get back—"

But Jasper wouldn't find out what would happen to him when he got back. Alba had clasped the door back tight, locking it with a swift jerk to the wheel on the other side, and whatever noise Rickets hoped to make was lost.

"Thank you, Alba." Jasper smiled slightly, moving to hobble his way towards the stairs up to the facility and the garage, already preparing himself for what he may find upon his arrival. "I was starting to get a headache."
[center][h3] ~---~ [/h3][/center]
Roanne snorted as the call clicked off, in a little too much pain to think about what sort of rebuttal the tepid angel deserved. She could feel the heat of her blood running down her leg, a steady little stream of life leaving. But as long as she didn't remove the offensive claw, all that blood wouldn't come gushing out until she passed out and...

"Damn!" Roanne hissed, her fist making a soft thud against the brick wall. It wasn't as though she'd been careless, but at the same time, there hadn't really been time to process the situation. If that [i]thing'd[/i] had a single other second to fully transform, she'd be... well. What sort of demon was it, anyways, piercing through angelic mail with its bare body like that? And why hadn't she seen its demonic aura sooner?

The sound of footsteps in the quiet street immediately alerted her to another presence. Her body was a shock of reaction rather than thought and movement, almost as if she moved by instinct alone when she snapped around. She would have readied her blade, too, but—[i]Do not leave the alley and do not draw attention to yourself.[/i] Jasper was coming for her, and ramming into another conflict could put more than just herself at risk. So she took a moment for herself, easing her shoulders and forcing a smile as she met the sight of a gun.

She herself was an interesting sight, goggles covering up most of her face in the dark. There was nothing fancy on her—just a brown leather jacket slightly parted over a green camisole and casual jeans. Were it not for the blood drizzling down her leg and the nicks in her shirt and jacket where silver glinted in the slight moonlight, she might have seemed like an every-day, sword slinging sort of maverick. She gave that blade a light little twirl, flicking the blood off the silvery metal.

“Don't know a whole lot of ways to fix a wound with a gun.” Roanne rested a hand on her good hip, leaning slightly on one leg. “Believe me when I say it's best for you to be walking in the opposite direction.”

[@Themerlinhawk] ; (co-post with [@Howler])