[center][h3]Anna Kerensky[/h3][/center]
[hr]

Summoned to life by a loud ringing that fell like a hammerblow against her skull, Anna woke up with a cold sweat and the sickly sweet doom that seemed to have followed her back from the Pyramid Club. Fighting a wave of fear, she lurched upwards in a panic and gasped for air, desperately grabbing for her phone and then throwing it halfway across her bed before she had even read the caller ID of whoever had brought her back to the land of the living. Burying a sob in her hands, Anna pushed the blankets aside with a low, weary sigh. She ignored the half-awake complaints from the woman next to her and the fumbling hand that reached for her shoulder. 

She couldn't remember the woman's name. It was probably Sarah. Maybe Sophia. It didn't matter. It never did.

Rolling out of her bed, Anna grabbed a crumpled t-shirt that lay in a pile of clothing at the foot of the bed and threw it on. It smelled of sweat and vodka. A small cloud of glitter attacked her and flashes of the previous night exploded past her retinas, smashing her visual cortex with bright strobe lights and visions of excess. She held her head between her hands and cursed. Magic infused drugs always kicked hard. And tequila never helped. The young trash alchemist sat down on the floor several steps later with another groan of pain. She fished a pill out of the back pocket of her discarded jeans and swallowed it dry. 

Praying for mercy, she collapsed onto the cold floor with a low whimper, waiting for the moment to pass.

"Hello?" Anna heard, refusing to move or open her eyes as she tried to melt into a puddle on the wooden floor.

"Who? What? Hang on, I'll get her."

A hand shook her, gently at first, and then more forcefully.

"It's for you, someone calling about a Sunday Group, whatever that means, she says her name is Eleanor."

Rolling over onto her side and squinting between her fingers Anna eyed the disheveled women sitting next to her on the floor suspiciously. It was a trap. It had to be a trap. She began to feel a growing sense of dread that manifested into absolute despair. Curling into a sad ball on the dusty, glitter strewn floor of her room the young wizard began to plead with the universe at large.

[i]Not work.

Not Eleanor.

Not now.

Please not now.[/i]

Anna studied the ceiling for several seconds as she contemplated the excuses she could make. Eleanor Tregellan didn't seem the type to buy a sad story. And the company still believed in her. She hadn't burned enough bridges for them to hate her. They didn't know her, not really. Not yet. The buzz from the pill calmed her. She breathed slowly, enjoying the tingling warmth that crept outward from her core. She was an artist. A real artist with drugs. It was a pity so few people knew. The office. Anna closed her eyes and let herself fade from the moment. When she opened her eyes again words floated past her.

"Fuck," Anna muttered, feeling suddenly dizzy as she remembered the linear flow of time. She grabbed the phone unsteadily and sent her midnight companion away and back to the bed with a chastising wave of her hand.

"What's up, boss?" Anna said, leaning her head gloomily against the floor as she pressed the phone against her ear, managing to sound only halfway under the influence of too many fresh arcane ingredients.

"Anna," Eleanor replied her voice clipped with a deliberate lack of emotion.

"You shouldn't have someone else answering your phone it's not... never mind. We have a case and I need you here immediately."

"Immediately?" Anna said, swallowing the sob that threatened to escape her throat.

"Are you sure there isn't someone else you can call? Someone closer? I'm...incredibly busy at the moment," Anna continued uncertainly, casting an eye towards her bed and the other women. 

"If I need something shot immediately, I call Clive, if I need an alchemist immediately I call you. So kindly shake the glitter out of your eyes, put your panties on and get your ass in here," Eleanor responded in a tone so calm that it would have shamed a Catholic Saint. One of the old kind that might get to smiting any minute now.

Anna felt an electric surge of fear. Calm was not good. Calm Eleanor was extremely not good. The haze of a long night and morning was not enough for her to forget. Not really. Not completely. She needed Eleanor. She needed the Sunday Group. 

Haphazardly covering her phone with her hands, Anna turned to woman who's name she couldn't remember, "Ummm...do you think you could get me an Uber? I'll pay you back next time, promise. I'll buy you a drink. A fancy drink. It's a work thing. Something important. I don't think I can get out of it. Not this time."

"Mmm, maybe," came the reply. "But only if you come back to bed, at least for a bit."

Anna sighed and the sweetness had faded from her voice as she addressed Eleanor with an obvious edge of exhausted defeat, "Fine, boss, fine, I'll be there as soon as I can. I just need...I just need to get some things first." 

"Wonderful," Eleanor replied with a nonchalance that almost burned, "I'll see you in twenty minutes."

[hr]

Minutes passed as Anna lay in the bed in a panic. 

Her head remained buried beneath her pillow and she tried her best not to cry. She kept her eyes closed shut, as if the darkness could protect her from having to get out of her bed. Colors swirled across her vision. Strange colors that hurt her head as she tried to see past them. She felt herself falling as she tried to scream. There was no sound as the she felt the darkness, true darkness, overtake her.

A poised figure seemed to loom above and behind her. Eleanor. The Boss. Springsteen? No. Tregellan. Less Americana and soulful crowning. More witchy and half muttered curses. Anna remembered her. Anna knew her. Anna knew her all too well. All those freckles, all that competence, and all those gold framed glasses. Eleanor intimidated her. Eleanor scared her. But she needed her. She needed Eleanor. She needed the Sunday Group.

Another form danced in front of her. She saw a smooth face and rumpled clothes. A toothpick held in place between smirking lips. An investigator. One of many. Another enigmatic private dick she'd met at the Sunday Group. Manny Rockefeller. She wasn't quite sure what he did, but he seemed like the capable sort. He'd heard Eleanor say he was a problem solver. Whatever that meant, whatever that really meant.

The vision faded.

A serious face and serious eyes appeared instead. Grim eyes stared back at her. A man with guns, so many guns. Clive Davidson. The name meant little to her, but she heard faint music and an [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLXQltR7vUQ]Ennio Morricone banger[/url] banger began to play. She hoped he was like John Wayne. John Wayne in True Grit. A mean man, perhaps a stupid man. A gunslinger. Just the sort of monster the Sunday Group needed to hunt the real monsters.

Gun smoke shrouded the figure as she vanished into the darkness.

A cheerful smile that was somehow as distressing as it was kind emerged from the smoke. The librarian. Junia Harris. A strange woman, but a clever woman, and the owner of an oddly shaped face. Anna saw books, endless stacks of books, as she thought of the tall woman. She felt as if the image of the books that appeared unbidden in her mind would overwhelm her, and she could have sworn she was staring at a an endless maze that seemed to stretch into long eternity. There was a low song, full of words she couldn't understand, and the wet smell of the ocean. Somehow it made her afraid and Anna shuddered.

"Get a hold of yourself," Anna admonished and pleaded with a desperate laugh. It was the drugs. It was the pixie dust. It was always the drugs. It was always the pixie dust. The visions weren't real. She wasn't real. Nothing was real. Not anymore.

[hr]

The bed rocked as Anna tore the pillow away from her head and forced her eyes open. 

She resisted the urge to scream and gulped down her anxiety. She couldn't let them down. Not yet. Not now. Not again. She needed rent money. She needed caffeine. And she needed a breakfast burrito. She had to get up. She had a job to do. With her mind made up, she rose to her feet and walked unsteadily out of her bedroom. She didn't bother putting on any more clothes. She wasn't a prude. She didn't believe in pants. Not within the safety of her own flat. Well, Milo's flat, but she paid him. So it was hers. As long as she had cash. 

Trying her best to walk like a human and not a zombie, Anna stumbled through the hallway, past the crumbling kitchen, and walked into the bathroom with a muted grunt in the direction of the bowler wearing young man sitting on the living room floor as he delicately fussed over a kettle of tea and ornate tea set. He waved back at her, but his eyes didn't move away from the tea.

Slamming the door behind her, Anna undressed and stepped into the shower. The cold kiss of water jolted her completely awake and she leaned her head against the wall as the water rose to an almost unbearable temperature. The water fell over her and she felt tears on her cheeks. She needed a way out. She needed more time. She needed Cara. Drugs couldn't banish the nightmares. Magic couldn't quiet her desperate need. Scalding water and burning soap couldn't make her clean. She could still see the fangs. She could still smell the sickly sweet death that haunted her. 

Her life had been good. Her life had been simple. She had lived in nondescript warehouses subsiding on a well-tested diet of coffee in Styrofoam cups, instant noodles, loud thumping music, and party drugs. But she'd fucked up. She'd fucked up and now she was trapped. The Sunday Group was her way out. It was her only chance. If she could make a buck. If she could make a lot of bucks. She could get out. She could buy her way out.

A loud thump on the door interrupted her frantic thoughts. Milo didn't like it when she wasted water. He said anything more than fifteen minutes was a waste of money. Uninterested in another argument, Anna turned off the water with a string of curses and wrapped herself in a nearby towel. She flashed Milo both of her middle fingers as she walked past him. His low chuckle followed her back to her room. Her friend from the previous night hadn't moved much.

Several more minutes passed before the alchemist was ready. She had dressed reluctantly, perceiving real work to be suffering. Her black jeans were tastefully torn at one knee and her t-shirt was a loud electric blue. Feeling a need for some level of professionalism, Anna put on a pair of scuffed green canvas sneakers that seemed more than cool enough for a business meeting. She hoped the rest of the Sunday Group would be pleased that she'd even taken the time to do her makeup. She grabbed her jacket from the chair where she had left it on her way out of the bedroom.

Still reaching for some semblance of calm,  Anna crossed the apartment and stopped at a thick metal door that seemed oddly out of place in a residential apartment. The door latch looked to be fashioned from the rear axle of an old Ford and had been haphazardly welded across the metal lined door frame. The alchemist pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the bike lock strung through the latch. 

Anna walked into the room deliberately, stopping to disarm the trigger mechanism of the alchemical bomb she had set up. She'd picked up the design reading a redacted paper from some three letter agency about modern IEDs. She didn't bother to close the door behind her. Milo knew to respect her privacy. She felt a small rush of slowly growing excitement. Eleanor needed her. The Sunday Group needed her. She knew something. She could do something. She was useful. She wasn't a failure. She wasn't a loser. She wasn't doomed, at least not yet.

Idly dreaming, Anna grabbed her work bag. It was a tattered leather bag that lived in the corner of the room. She kept it stocked with basic alchemical ingredients and her own personal takes on classical potions. Peering inside she noted that she had a potion to heighten the senses, a potion to facilitate a hasty escape, a potion to increase strength, and a potion to heal minor wounds. The key she mused pridefully to herself, flicking a vial lightly with her fingertips, was adding cherry flavor. Powerful magic was so much more tolerable when it was accompanied by a sweet flavor.

Without a second thought the young alchemist reached for a jar of small pills that she shoved into an empty bottle of Ibuprofen. Shaking the pill bottle, she stashed it in the inner pocket of her jacket. The color coded pills were an elicit mixture of arcane drugs of her own design, varying in potency and effect, from a mild buzz to a psychedelic magic fueled trip into another plane of existence. They would help her ease the boredom she expected. They'd numb the familiar pains. They'd help her escape herself. They'd keep her functional, at least for a while. Maybe they'd even help her forget.

Shutting the heavy door to the laboratory behind her, Anna reset the alchemical trap. It was powerful enough to level the room if not the entire apartment. She wrapped a heavy bike lock through the latch and tugged forcefully on it before nodding contently to herself. She wasn't taking any chances. She trusted Milo, but she wasn't an idiot. He was a friend, a good friend even, but friendships wasn't an insurance policy when dealing with groups of cranky wizards drunk on their own moral superiority and delusions of grandeur.

"I'm heading out, Milo", Anna said, putting on her jacket. Wearing her armor, she finally felt ready, ready to face the world and the monsters that lurked in the shadows. At least that's what she wanted to believe. If only she hadn't known better.

"A party, this early?" Milo asked as she reached for the door knob.

"No, I wish," Anna said. "Work. Got a phone call from the office."

"Office? This that Sunday Group thing you were talking about? No more peddling drugs, ey? You've finally went and gone straight on me, have you?"

"Yes, I'm upstanding member of society now, Milo. An honest woman, as it were," Anna said sarcastically. She crossed her arms and nodded in the direction of her laboratory, "Keep on eye on things will you?"

"Sure, sure, you pay me for the privilege of two rooms and I will guard that privilege with my life."

"Wonderful, just don't let anyone into my laboratory."

"Of course, that's what you pay me extra for," Milo answered without even a hint of offense in his voice.

"And if the cops show up just make sure to burn my kit before they get through the front door."

"What do I do if a council of wizards show up?" Milo asked with a raised brow and a smirk that betrayed his true nature.

Anna paused in thought for a moment and then offered a shrug, "If a council of wizards show up, make sure to burn my stuff even faster. I don't need them offering me any more advice."

"Right, napalm it is. Let's see those older geezers deal with that," Milo said with a laugh.

Anna rolled her eyes at the young trickster, fighting an urge to call him a child. She gestured with a thumb towards her bedroom, recalling a recent complication, "Oh, there's a woman in my room, Sarah, can you make sure she leaves in a couple of hours."

Milo turned and looked at her with familiar eyes. Sad eyes, full of disappointment. Anna swore under her breath. She knew she had fucked up. She had fucked up again and the trash alchemist felt a wave of self-disgust surging through her. The hoodlum tutted softly, "Samantha, she said her name was Samantha. You'd do well to listen, just once, Anna. You can't keep treating people like this."

"Yeah, ok. Samantha, that's what I said. Get off my back, Milo. Just get her out of my room and don't let her back in."

"Yeah, yeah, but don't expect me to apologize for you."

"What's there to apologize for?" she hissed at Milo, trying her best to channel her shame into anger. Anger was good. Anger was easy. She could work with anger. She could handle it.

She heard Milo rising from his merch on the couch before open the door, "Wait, hold up Anna."

Even with the bowler hat on his head, he was a good head shorter than Anna and a fair bit younger. Anna always hated how much older he seemed. He lorded his position as household authority over her. He cared. He cared and sometimes she hated him for caring. Oblivious, he beamed a smiled at her and held out a paper shopping bag. She made no move to take the bag and Milo impatiently flashed a gun from within the paper.

"On the house. Something to keep you safe. 9mm Para-fucking-bellum. Czech Steel. Shoots ace. Not a lot of kick. Will last you for a good hundred years. Clips loaded and you've got 16 rounds. Just don't forget to turn the safety off before you start blasting, yeah?"

"I don't need a gun, Milo," Anna said, feeling her heart lurch in her chest. She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't even a sometimes fighter. She was a runner. She was a coward.

"Yeah, well wizards always say shit like that and then they take a round to the dome or find themselves eaten by some monster. You're an investigator now, Anna, you gotta bring some artillery with you when you hit the streets."

"Fuck," Anna said, regretting her life choices for only the fourth time in an hour. "If I get arrested I'm telling them you gave me this."

"Just use some magic, make it look like a rock or something. Use a glamor, can't be that hard. I've seen other pointy hatted fellows do it. Not like anyone is gonna look to carefully at your bag, are they? You've got enough going on to keep them staring," Milo replied with a wink.

"Fuck," was all she weakly managed as she took the gun and stuffed it into her bag.

She wasn't ready to kill.

She wasn't a killer, even if she could check off a long list of sins.

[hr]

Ten minutes later, Anna strode up to the offices of the Sunday Group with her tired eyes hidden beneath a pair of sunglasses. 

She had stolen them from a shop rack after her Uber at dropped her off a couple of block from the office. Free was almost always better than $179.95. The alchemist wielded a questionable breakfast burrito she had purchased from an even more dubious food cart in her right hand. She had an office. They had said so on her first day. Well, it was less of an office and more of a chemistry laboratory. She couldn't remember where it was. She didn't feel like asking. It was somewhere in the basement and the idea of stairs didn't appeal to her. The short car ride and walk to the office was enough adventure for one day as far as she was concerned. She had survived and she wasn't taking any more chances.

Touching the door to the office, Anna felt a hint of magic, old magic. A Magical door was a nice touch she thought. She was impressed. She wondered if there were any old wizards around. Old wizards with valuable artifacts that she could borrow. Old wizards with ancient tomes full of forbidden knowledge that she could read.

The office felt new. The office felt as if it had changed. Anna wondered if she had forgotten. Memories felt as if they had changed. Anxiety coursed through her blood and she reflexively palmed the vial of blood she kept in the pocket of her jacket. She was falling apart. She was losing it. She wanted to forget. She had to forget. She wanted to drink the blood. She needed it. She needed it, she needed it now, but she knew that she'd really need it later. 

Concentrating on each step she took, Anna found herself standing in front of a large counter worthy of any Fortune 500 wannabe corporation and peering at the flustered looking secretary that sat behind it. Anna moved her mouth to speak, but found the motion troublesome and instead leaned dramatically against the counter.

"Yes, Miss Kerensky?" the secretary finally said. She sounded annoyed and Anna could see the way she looked at her. She felt judged. She felt measured. And she felt that she had been found wanting. It was the story of her life, Anna thought, feeling increasingly unsteady.

"I need to see the boss. I need to see Eleanor. Where is she? Take me to her," Anna began effortfully, pausing to offer a smile as she tried her best to keep from falling, "Please?"

[hider=Summary of Post 1 for Anna]
Eleanor wakes up / terrifies Anna (Anna has her one night stand answer the phone, because that's what adults do).
Anna cleans up (mostly).
Anna takes an Uber to work (getting her "friend" to pay for it, because she is clearly being very bad).
Anna steals some sweet sunglasses and then strolls up to the Sunday Group offices.
Anna asks the secretary to take her to Eleanor because she doubts her own ability to find her.
[/hider]