[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/TTOwIr0.png[/img][/center] [center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/dHRmLjEyOC5jNjAxMDEuVG05aGFDQkRiM0oyWVc1bC4z/shoguns-clan.regular.webp[/img][/center] [center][color=black][sup]____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center][color=darkslategray] [center][color=C60000][b]Location:[/b][/color] Gutter's End - Abandoned Warehouse • [color=C60000][b]Time:[/b][/color] Dusk[/center] [center][color=C60000][b]Interactions:[/b][/color]Wren[@Tpartywithzombi] • [color=C60000][b]Mentions:[/b][/color]Locke[@Oso][/center][/color] [center][color=black][sup]____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][/color][/center] [hider=Optional, just Noah torturing a guy] [color=slategray] The scent of blood hung thick in the air of the dusty, long-abandoned warehouse. Screams often went unanswered in Gutter's End; whether ignored or simply unheard was anyone’s guess. Every few minutes, the sharp edge of pure terror sliced through the metallic tang, adding a rich, almost savory, smell to the air. The warehouse was nearly pitch dark, save for the lone moonbeams that dared to slither in through a long since shattered window, cutting across the grime. Here, in a forgotten and empty place, any mask of civility had faded away with the sun. A man’s scream crumbled into a desperate plea for mercy. [color=C60000]“Mercy?”[/color] Noah spat the word out with disgust. [color=C60000]“Do I look like a [i]merciful[/i] man, Jimmy?”[/color] He laughed and his chest rumbled with the sound. Something purely wicked reverberated through the room as five more vampires joined in. The sound echoed around a bruised and bloody mortal. [color=C60000]“There is no mercy here; only misery.”[/color] He offered a soft and sinister promise. Noah circled the wooden chair Jimmy was tied to, his slow methodical footsteps tapped softly against the floorboards. He let his words sink in, let the anticipation build, and listened to the racing pulse of his prey as terror took hold. Then, his footsteps stopped. Without warning he yanked Jimmy’s head back, the chair tilted with him, and Noah leaned in and whispered into Jimmy’s ear. [color=C60000]“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”[/color] The chair slammed forward again. A nail gun went off once… twice… thrice. Jimmy screamed and writhed in his chair. Noah circled around again and faced Jimmy with all the speed and grace a vampire was capable of, his coat billowed. [color=C60000]“And you’ve been one [i]spoiled little shit![/i] We brought you business, a cut of the action, and what did you do Jimmy? [b]Bite the [i]fucking[/i] hand that fed you![/b]”[/color] Noah shouted over the man's screams like a unhinged burst of thunder. One hand shot forward and rattled the chair. [color=white]“I didn’t—I wouldn’t—”[/color] A lie started to sputter out only to transform into a shriek as the gun nailed Jimmy’s other palm and the arm of the wooden chair became one. [color=C60000]“Alessio,”[/color] Noah said, barely glancing back as he began pacing around the chair again. [color=C60000]“Show him the evidence.”[/color] One of the other vampires stepped forward, his voice devoid of emotion as he carefully explained and held up each piece of evidence up for Jimmy to see. Surveillance photos. Phone logs. Files found in Jimmy’s office with details about the Corvane family’s business. Each bit of damnation was dropped into the helpless human's lap. [color=C60000]“So now you’re not just a rat,”[/color] Noah said, voice like a disappointed parent. [color=C60000]“You’re a lying rat.”[/color] He closed his eyes and smiled as he shook his head. Poor, wounded Jimmy sat stuck to his chair, hope falling away with every drop of blood. [color=C60000]“And that’s a problem. ‘Cause I need to know every bit of shit you’ve leaked to the Wardens.”[/color] [color=white]“None! I swear. They’ve been houndin’ me. Askin’ what I’ve seen. I told ‘em nothin’.”[/color] Jimmy’s words were a scattered mess of desperation. He still thought he could talk his way out of this. [color=C60000]“Lemme knock some sense into you.”[/color] The nail gun slammed into Jimmy’s nose, shattering bone. [color=C60000]“We’ve already established you’re a liar, Jimmy.”[/color] He held the nail gun up to Jimmy’s eye. Click. Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing. Noah tossed the nail gun across the floor, back to where he’d found it. Then without pause or hesitation, drove his thumb up and under one of Jimmy’s eyes and deep into the socket. It popped, Noah yanked, and soon the little orb fell to the ground with a soft thud. Noah shuddered with excitement, something about ripping an eyeball out just gave him the most delightful sense of Déjà vu. He licked blood from his fingers. [color=C60000]“You know what I like about hands?”[/color] he asked, a sudden glee in his tone. [color=C60000]“Same thing I like about eyes.”[/color] He crouched down in front of Jimmy, looked up into that empty, leaking, socket with a smile. With a tilt of his head, Noah studied the broken man in front of him. [color=C60000]“[i]There’s two of them.[/i]”[/color] He watched the dread bloom across Jimmy’s face, heard all that desparte faulty hope drain out as screams softened into whimpers. [color=C60000]“[i]Eeeeye’[/i]ll only tell you once, Jimmy, I hate liars.”[/color] Noah reached out hand to one of the vampire’s behind him. [color=C60000]“Bolt cutters.”[/color] The old rusted tool was handed to Noah as he stood back up and rested a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. [color=C60000]“Now, I’m guessing this is your first time being tortured so tell ya what I’m going to do.”[/color] He spoke like he was offering a favor and wrapped the blades around the tip of Jimmy’s pinky finger. [color=C60000]“We’ll take it nice and slow, Jimbo. Start with just the tip.”[/color] The bolt cutters snapped around the finger. Wicked laughter filled the room, drowning out much of the screaming. [color=C60000]“You know what I like about fingers? There’s ten of them. [i]Ten[/i], Jimmy, and I’m going to cut each one away until they're gone. And while I’m doing that, you’re going to talk and wonder what you can say to make it all stop.”[/color] He paused before leaning in to whisper, [color=C60000]“The misery ends when I believe you. When I get the truth. That might take awhile.”[/color] Piece by piece, Noah cut the truth out of Jimmy the Rat. How he’d sold information on a variety of their clubs and blood farms, and even a few sparse details on Magnus’s Crimson Garden. How the Warden’s had cleaned up Jimmy’s blood addiction and turned him on his vampiric masters. The slimy, ungrateful, little rodent. The traitor. [color=C60000]“You could’ve been [i]Made[/i], Jimmy, could’ve been something. Now you’re just a little rat who fell in a meat grinder. There’s one more thing I want you to know, I lied to you too. This doesn’t end when I believe you…”[/color] Noah teased. He shoved the bolt cutters into the man's mouth, blades wrapping around the tongue that had told too many lies. [i]Snip.[/i] [color=C60000]“It ends when I get bored.”[/color] [i]Snip.[/i] Jimmy, or the mangled bloody thing that was left of him, drew only faint shallow breaths. He made no sound and merely sat, hands nailed to the arm of a wooden chair and head slipped low. The evidence, so stained with crimson that they were unrecognizable, were soon doused with gasoline. Without eyes, ears, or a nose, Noah wondered if Jimmy even knew what was coming next. He hoped he did, Noah hoped the shudder he caught from the shell of a man was a final horrific realization as a vampire stuck a match and let it fall onto the files. Jimmy lit up and soon faded away. [/color][/hider] [hr] [color=slategray] Noah paused for a moment, admiring his work, his art. What was once a man, now something mangled and unrecognizable, sat burning on a chair. Poor ol’ Jimmy Salvatore, formerly a promising blood slave, now just a dead rat. Noah lingered just long enough to ensure the body, and the evidence against Jimmy, got nice and crispy. The flames were inspiring, they lit up the scene perfectly. Noah plucked his phone from his pocket, picked up the severed eyes from the floor, and set up the perfect selfie. One with a burning Jimmy, pieces of him scattered about the floor, glowing in the background. [color=C60000]Finished work Headed home Eye can’t wait to see you[/color] [hider=cute Noah selfie][img]https://i.imgur.com/NoTGqod.png[/img][/hider] He sent the string of messages to Wren with a lovesick smile strewn across his face before making his way out of the warehouse just as the building started to catch like the brittle tinderbox it was. He’d grab someone to eat on the way home, the smell in the warehouse had really tickled his appetite. Noah got into a sleek black sedan, one that looked drastically out of place in Gutter's End, and never once looked up from his phone. Bloody fingers still tapped away at the phone screen as he sent a message to Lachlan Devlin, tonight’s second order of business. [color=C60000]We need to talk. Tonight. Pink Room.[/color] Simple. Short. Straight to the point. Let ol’ Lucky Locke wonder what he wanted. Let the bastard stew a little. After what he’d done, after Locke had just up [i][b]and left them, when once they were inseparable[/b][/i], the man deserved much worse than what he’d gotten. It was aggravating that the Fae had made himself so useful, the best in the business, and Noah wouldn’t trust less than the best for this. Locke’s luck wasn’t set to run out and this wasn’t about old betrayals. It was about a fresh one. Angel’s; his stupid ungrateful sister who had decided she was too good for her family. It was long past time to drag her back home. On the way, Noah grabbed the first human dumb enough to be walking the streets alone and dragged them into the car. It was lazy, but what was wrong with a lazy breakfast every now and then? The car continued towards the foreboding obsidian skyscraper, The Black Spire, as if a quick killing in the backseat was nothing out of the ordinary. In Halcyon, it certainly wasn't, and those employed by vampires got used to cleaning up the blood they left behind. Noah paused just behind the door to his room. He could smell the long dead corpse from down the hallway and it wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of other rooms, that weren’t his damn bedroom, to play with dead things. [color=C60000][i]No…no. Not my problem. One of the thralls can clean this up.[/i][/color] They were going out anyway. He flung the door open and didn’t bother to close it. A short walk past the main room of the high rise apartment and into the bedroom greeted him with a scene almost right out of [i]The Godfather[/i]. His sheets were covered in old, soured blood. He pulled the pack of cigarettes from his jacket, plucked one out, and lit it. A long drag mixed with the scent of tobacco helped hide the scent of blood long since expired. [color=C60000]“Wren? Am I going to find a goddamn horse head in that bed?”[/color] He asked, his words teasing and his eyes watchful. [/color]