[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/WLTRsyo.png[/img][/center] [color=CadetBlue] [center][color=black][sup]____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center] [center][color=IndianRed][b]Location:[/b][/color] Penthouse Suite 1411 • [color=IndianRed][b]Time:[/b][/color] Dusk[/center] [center][color=IndianRed][b]Interactions:[/b][/color] A Crow Named Mercy • [color=IndianRed][b]Mentions:[/b][/color] Noah [@helo] [/center] [center][color=black][sup]____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center][/color] [Center][Youtube]https://youtu.be/d0Gsyr_0PpA?si=U5-1eL_sSf7H-Pps[/youtube][/center] [color=silver] Halcyon looked beautiful tonight. But then, that was the trouble with the city. It always looked beautiful. It sprawled beneath the glass in a flood of jewel tones and drops of rain trailing down the window, a city soaked in color ... neon bleeding across the skyline in bruised violets and electric golds, pink signs flickering in time with the thunder of bass lines that pulsed from rooftop bars and underground dens. It glowed like temptation and smelled like regret. It was a cathedral of sin with a dress code and a sommelier with one hell of a wine list. And from here, it looked like it was still holding together. Locke stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of the penthouse, one hand tucked into his pocket, the other curled around a glass. His reflection barely flickered in the pane. Just a shadow in a tailored silver vest, rings catching the light, eyes the color of warm embers before they went cold. Auburn, but sharp. Like the last thing you saw before the sun dipped below the horizon and the dark of night took its rightful place. Mercy cawed softly from her perch beneath a modern light fixture sculpted like a twisted helix. Reflections from its warm bulbs made her feathers gleam like oil. She didn’t look at him, just the window…just the city. Locke sipped his Irish coffee slowly, savoring it like a ritual. Sweetened cream, rich roast, just enough whiskey to kiss the edge of his throat on the way down. It tasted like memories. Like his father’s quiet hum in the kitchen and a sharp smack on the hand if he reached for the bottle too early. [color=cadetblue]“Pretty from a distance, isn’t it?”[/color] he murmured to the crow, his voice low and smooth with that soft Irish tilt that made everything he said sound more like a song or a secret. [color=cadetblue]“You can feel her hummin’ under your skin, can’t you? Like she knows you’re watchin’.”[/color] Mercy didn’t reply, of course she didn’t. She just blinked once, but somehow Locke knew the gist of her feelings on the matter. [color=cadetblue]“I swear, this place feels like it’s one bad day from burnin’ to the ground,”[/color] he added after a moment. [color=cadetblue]“But it never does. It lingers, like blood under your fingernails.”[/color] Another sip. Slower, this time. He let it warm him from the inside out. The silence stretched long and sweet. The kind of silence that people mistake for peace ... but that Locke had long since learned was the sound of something waiting. He turned from the window to reveal something far less beautiful than the neon jungle below. The apartment behind him was a slaughterhouse. Blood painted the walls in looping, arterial arcs. A smear trailed down the marble kitchen island like someone had tried ... and failed ... to crawl away. There was a tooth near the fridge. A whole fucking tooth. One of the bar stools was cracked clean in half, splinters stabbed into the floor like miniature stakes. Locke exhaled softly through his nose. Set the glass down on the only clean counter with a careful touch. He rolled his shoulders once, and pulled his black leather gloves on one hand at a time… flexing the fingers within as he did so, stretching the leather to get them just right. [color=cadetblue]“All right, my girl,”[/color] he said to Mercy with gentle enthusiasm. [color=cadetblue]“Let’s tidy up.”[/color] The glamour came easily. It always did. It started at his feet ... thin silver lines that etched across the floor like veins, delicate and precise, spreading outward with a hum that only he and the dead could hear. Reality began to bend, not violently, but with quiet inevitability, like a sheet folding under its own weight. He stepped over the blood trail, the stain vanished behind him like it had been pulled into the tile by invisible threads. Bone splinters turned to soot and were drawn into a small sigil etched midair, hovering in front of his palm. Locke lifted a small glass vial from his vest pocket ... dark, crystal-cut, capped in silver. He unstoppered it, held it toward the open air, and whispered something under his breath. The glamour obeyed. The smell of blood and death that was filling the room... in all of its coppery rotten glory ... peeled away from the air and funneled into the vial like smoke into a chimney. He sealed it with a flick of his wrist. [color=cadetblue]“That one’s for the river,”[/color] he said absently, tucking it away. He moved like water, like silk. Hands steady, motions deliberate. Where he passed, destruction vanished. Walls smoothed. Cracks in the drywall mended. A throw pillow ... previously soaked in sanguine... fluffed itself clean and dry. A shattered coffee table reassembled with the faintest click of wooden joints syncing back into place. Even the emotional imprint of the violence ... that lingering pressure that made your stomach twist when you entered a room that knew what had happened ... was drawn into a ward and locked away. Locke Devlin didn’t just clean up a crime scene. He made it so it had never happened. By the time he was done, the apartment looked like the cover of a design magazine. Polished chrome, sleek lines, a small candle burning in the corner with the scent of bergamot and sandalwood ... his signature, though most never noticed it until long after he was gone. Mercy fluttered down and landed on his shoulder with a rustle of wings. She let out a small, satisfied noise ... a mimic of a sigh he hadn’t realized she’d heard from him before. Locke smiled without showing teeth. [color=cadetblue]“All right, love. Job’s done.”[/color] He retrieved his drink, swirling the last inch of whiskey and cream. He sipped and pondered the scene before stepping back to the window to take one more look from on high. There were worse things to be than lucky. But in Halcyon, luck could be more terrifying than magic. And Locke Devlin had both. He straightened his vest, smoothed a hand down the front of his shirt, and vanished out the front door, leaving no prints, no traces, no ghosts behind. Only the faint smell of clove. And the quiet certainty that someone, somewhere had just gotten away with murder. But before he could even put the building behind him, he felt the buzz of a notification coming from his pocket. Something in him stirred and his heart sunk deep into the pit of his stomach, though he didn’t understand where or why the sense of dread came from. Then he checked the phone. It was text. [color=C60000][i]We need to talk. Tonight. Pink Room.[/i][/color] It wasn't the words that justified the dread. It was who sent the message. [B]Noah Corvane.[/b] An old friend, but also something so...so much worse. [/color]