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[IC] Vanguard: Calder City Page 3

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Supermaxx dumbass

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PARASITE: Chasing Shadows
CHAPTER #0: A Night In ♫
Edgewater, Lower East Calder ♦ Calder City



Lucille Almánzar’s house was small enough that she only had to take five steps to get from her kitchenette to her living room. The television cast the otherwise lightless room in a pale blue glow. Lucille flopped down onto her sofa with a bowl of popcorn in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Chomper, a long-jowled and fat headed bulldog, leapt up beside her.

Less a glass and more a plastic to-go cup, and some people might call it ‘boxed, sugary swill’ instead of proper wine. She downed half the cup in one gulp. Her tongue sizzled at the taste. Cheap, cold, sweet goodness, with plenty more to go. Before the end of the night, her head would be swimming in a delicious half-consciousness, where the world stretched and squashed like a funhouse mirror.

She tucked her legs up underneath her as she started flipping through streaming services to find something to watch. Scrolling, eyes glazed over, a hundred titles flashed by. Nothing jumped out at her. She couldn’t focus. Her mind was on Harborlight. The girls were probably there already, drunk out of their minds and dancing like it was their last night on earth. She closed her eyes. She could practically see them there, faces flashing neon blue under the vaulted ceiling. Lucille’s throat tightened. Her eyes stung. She wished she could’ve gone with them. Wished she felt safe enough to be there.

Chomper must’ve sensed her apprehension. He whined until she moved her popcorn bowl enough to plop himself down on her lap

‘No,’ she clenched her teeth. ‘I’m fine. I can enjoy myself right here.’

“Thanks, buddy.”

She settled on rewatching Legally Blonde for the umpteenth time. Elle was an icon, and half the reason Lucille studied pre-law after high school…sure, she flunked out of half her courses, had to change her major and was still eating student debt, but hey! Follow your dreams, kids.

An hour later, while Reese Witherspoon was teaching a salon full of women how to bend and snap, Lucille thought heard something. She paused the movie.

Tap tap tap. Knuckles rapping against thin wood, quiet as a whisper. Someone was at the door, but it sounded like they weren’t trying to make much noise. Lucille looked at her phone, wincing. It was 1:45 AM. She had six missed calls from Gabriella, two from Beth and more texts than she could count.

“Oh, jeez. God. I’m coming, guys, sorry.” She called to the door as she pried Chomper off of her and rose to her feet. Stupid of her not to tell them she couldn’t make it tonight. Ghosting them never worked- of course someone would show up on her doorstep when she didn’t show. They were always worried about her, always fussing over her like a lost puppy. Her socks pitter-pattered against the hardwood floor as she walked.

She heard Chomper follow behind her, a growl in his throat. Lucille waved a finger at him. “Dude, shut up. You know them. Stop being so dramatic.”

The headlights from a car pulled up in the driveway shone like flood lamps through the front window, blinding her. Gabby drove here with her brights on- again. Typical. Lucille stepped up to the door, pulled off the chain and unlocked the deadbolt.

Lucille jumped out of her skin when she heard a thunderous boom from the other side of the door. A car backfired outside. Then again and again, thrice in quick succession. Chomper belted out barks louder than she thought possible. Ice flooded her veins as fear ran through her. Her skin felt wet, clammy. Sweat trickled down her neck and her cheeks flushed. Ridiculous. Embarrassing. She was jumping at shadows now. She felt so scared her stomach ached.

“Fuck.” She hissed, leaning forward on the door for support. Her stomach didn’t just ache- it hurt. Pain crawled in a spider web pattern up inside her. This was so stupid. She was lightheaded. Whether that was from the sudden terror or one too many cups of bad wine, she didn’t know.

Instinctively, she put a hand to her belly, wincing. It felt…sticky. Wet. Lucille looked down at her hand. Soaked with a red, globby liquid. Had she spilled something?

“Fuck! Fuck, I’m bleeding! Oh shit. Oh shit-” Lucille’s legs turned to gelatin underneath her. She collapsed. Hit the wood hard enough to crack her elbow, and again she yowled in pain.

The knob turned. Someone opened the door from outside. Chomper ran up to the door, snarling and barking, teeth barred.

“Help- Gabby, help me, I- I got hurt-”

Light from the car parked just outside flooded into the living room, blinding her. Blinking, all she could see was the shape of the figure standing in the door way. Huge, broad shouldered, imposing. A man, silhouetted against the light. He raised his gun and shot her again.


PARASITE: Chasing Shadows
CHAPTER #1: Eulogy for the Forgotten ♫
Main Street, Midtown ♦ Calder City



It was never dark in Midtown. Even thirty minutes away from the witching hour, the City District shone with the lights of a hundred billboards. They were covered with advertisements for soda, the latest action blockbuster schlock, and the smiling faces of Calder’s home grown capes. The neon sign atop Sky High Club still pulsed pink and green. Bars still proudly announced ‘OPEN FOR BUSINESS,’ even into the wee hours of the morning. The streets still flushed with bodies. Wealthy socialites on their way back to their penthouse suites or their manors in the hills rubbed shoulders with alcoholic sports fans celebrating the Calder Canaries winning a fourteen inning brawl with the Oakland A's.

An old sedan the color of mediocrity roared down Main Street at seventy miles an hour, flashing its red and blues. Its siren belted out a warning for everyone else on the road to get the fuck out of the way. Most listened. A pair of stubborn teenagers still darted out in front of it, forcing the sedan to swerve to avoid turning them into paste.

The scent of fresh coffee filled the interior, wafting off the pair of cups in the cupholder. The one closest to the passenger seat was a tall, metal cylinder with the words ‘Worlds Best Aunt’ printed on the side in blocky letters. The driver’s was paper and plastic, and displayed‘Lorenzo’s Cafe’ with pride. A box of half finished pastries sat in the backseat wore the same name.

In the center console, a bulky radio buzzed with voices mumbling criminal codes and I.D numbers. The volume stayed low. The chances of Dispatch would want to attach a pair of homicide detectives to a traffic stop were low, to say the least, and they already had a job for the night.

“Seriously? Main?” The woman in the passenger seat raised an eyebrow and tried not to sound exasperated. It didn’t work.

Detective Joan Cook was the image of a professional: blue blazer over a cream button-up blouse, tie straight as an arrow, oxfords shined to a polish and black curls pulled back in a tight bun. Her only eccentricity was the shoulder holster she wore beneath her jacket: she was one of the few cops in the city who didn’t wear their gun on their hip. People gave her shit for it at the station, but she didn’t give a damn- Joan thought it looked cool.

“Eh? Hell’s wrong with main?” The driver grumbled, incredulous, as he slammed his palm into the horn. Some cabby was taking eighty years to pull off into the right lane so the unmarked police cruiser could pass.

Solomon Cartwright was not the image of a professional. His hair was the same dry, greasy mass it had been when he crawled out of bed that afternoon. What he may have called a charming five o’clock shadow a few days again had transformed into a splotchy mess. He’d tied this tie exactly once and kept it on a hangar ever since. His collar was undone, his shirt was missing a button and for reasons only God could know, Solomon insisted on wearing a Stafford trench coat instead of a suit. Oh, and he smelled faintly of bourbon and cigarettes.

She did not grace him with a reply. Instead, she waved out the windshield at the line of traffic stopping them from merging off of Main and on to Burnside.

“S'the most direct route.”

“Birch has less foot traffic. Its faster.”

Grumbling, Solomon flipped on the AM/FM, hoping for some kind of distraction from the battle he was currently losing. A voice warm and filling as fresh baked bread thrummed through old speakers.

"…tuning in to 103 The Heat. I’m your host, Jeff Blaze. I’m sure you’ve all heard the news by now. It’s been on every channel, every hour on the hour since it happened. Some douchebag murdered the Mountain. The friggin’ Mountain! Still hard for me to believe. I mean, we all thought the guy was invincible. He ate bullets and cursed swords for breakfast. But he’s gone. He’s really gone. And we need to reckon with what this city- hell, this country- is gonna look like without him watchin’ over us. Vanguard gave the big guy a lovely funeral this morning. We have a clip of Chief Lichenstein’s keynote we’re going to play for you later, so stay tuned for that. First, though, we’ve got a special song lined up for the occasion. Tonight, we mourn the loss of a legend. This one’s to you, Mr. Mountain."

♫

Carry on, my wayward son

There'll be peace when you are done

Lay your weary head to rest

Don't you cry no more


Grief blanketed Calder City. Everywhere Solomon went, this cape’s death followed. It clung to his neighbors in the apartment stairwell, stinking of fear and uncertainty. It hung like a yoke on the necks of every cop at the precinct, as if they’d lost one of their own. It was in the gas station, the coffee shop, on the street corner and the subway. Millions of people clung to their radios and their televisions to watch a coffin be lowered into the dirt.

The loathing in his belly was thick as rotten milk. It made him sick- the obsession with celebrity. Heroes were brands; brands plastered on every roll of toilet paper and cereal box in the grocery store. They hosted Saturday Night Live and cameo'd in billion dollar movies. Hero worship infected this city to its core. Spread like cancerous cells through every fiber of life. Where else in the world did the lives of costumed millionaires so consume the attention of all?

“How many people been murdered this year, Cook?”

Her nose scrunched up with suspicion. “What kind of question is that?”

“Humor me.”

She sighed, gave it a few moments of thought and shrugged. “I don’t know. Last I heard we were on a decent trajectory to be down from last year.”

“And last year was what?”

“Four hundred and change, I think. Why? What’re you getting at, Cartwright?”

“Four hundred dead. N’ none of them got Wayward Son.” He pointed an accusing finger at the radio. “No funeral paid for with tax dollars. The world didn’t stop to give ‘em a moment of silence. Vanguard didn’t move heaven n’ earth to find their killers. Hell, we’re fightin’ admin for every scrap of overtime we can get.”

Detective Cook rubbed her temples with her middle fingers. “God, when Hart said you were a basket case, I thought he was exaggerating.”

Russel Hart’s name cut like a dagger through his side. His last partner- a better man than Solomon could ever hope to be. A man he’d failed.

“Sorry.” Solomon mumbled. His knuckles went white as he tightened his grip on the wheel. “Just don’t see what the big deal is.”

“People looked up to him. He was a hero.”

‘No such thing.' He thought, and he felt a scratch against the inside of his eyes. The old, familiar pain refused to be ignored. 'The Mountain's just a man who happened to be born Gray.’

He knew they were in the right place when he spotted red and blue light flashing against the walls of low, ancient houses. Single story abodes built too long ago and never refurbished, exterior wood rotted and crawling with termites. Half the pipes in this neighborhood were still lead, the claims of the mayor’s office be damned.

Edgewater. Only a block away from the Docks. Even with the windows up, he could smell it: the stink of the bay. Fish, salt and oil, a swill concocted by the dark gods of the sea to make a man’s belly churn at just a whiff.

Solomon parked between a patrol cruiser and an ambulance. Both he and Joan grabbed their coffee cups at the same time and climbed out, assaulted with the full force of Edgewater’s stink. Sol had to stand there for a moment just to adjust. He couldn’t count the number of decomposing bodies he’d shared a room with over the course of his career. None of them ever bothered him as much as that stupid bay.

A pair of EMTs worked to pack their gear back into the truck, apparently done here. Solomon craned his neck at the older of the two, gray hairs snaking their way through the thinning black waves on his head. "Got a time of death for me 'fore you leave?"

The man shook his head. "Dead when we got here. You'll have to ask the coroner."

"Already called the meatwagon, then?"

"Jesus, man." Disgust rankled his expression. "Who calls it that?"

A uniformed officer with bright red hair and skin paler than the moon leaned against his car, a cigarette burning between his fingers. His eyes lit up when he saw the detectives start toward him, so he tossed his cigarette butt onto the pavement and stood up. “You homicide? We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes.”

Joan shot Solomon a look before answering: “We were stuck in traffic. Mind walking us in?”

He nodded. The guy was tall, thin, and his cheeks were still flabby with youth. “Got the call at about two o’clock. Neighbor heard three shots fired and came out to check what was going on. Saw the door open and a body lying just inside, so he called us.” He led them up the walkway to the front door, pointing at it. There were three, identical holes in a tight pattern at around waist to chest height.

The odor of ill intent wafted through the air, thick and repugnant. It mixed like oil and water with the sea breeze, flipping Solomon's stomach upside down. That feeling he got at every murder scene came bubbling up to the surface. It crawled its way out of his belly, put its tiny hands on his ribs and climbed until it could sit directly atop his heart. There, it pressed on him from inside, urging Sol to some action it never could explain. Sol couldn't push it down. He never tried- not anymore. The thing sharing his body did not take well to rejection. Better to ignore its nudging until it lost interest and let him do his job.

Joan and the other cop moved on inside while Sol took a moment to gather himself at the doorstep.

"Do we have an I.D on the victim yet?"

A young woman lay in a pool of blood just inside. Long, dark hair fell over her face, still frozen in a look of helpless terror. She was dressed in a pair of pink shorts and a long, silk shirt of the same color. Pajamas. They looked comfortable. Solomon approached, pulling a pair of gloves out from his pocket so he could touch her without making Forensics's lives any harder than they already were. He brushed the hair back from her face. There was a hole in the center of her forehead leaking unspeakable fluids alongside the blood. Sol pushed it aside and looked at her cheeks and her eyes. Makeup. She was wearing a full face of makeup.

"Lucille Almánzar," the patrol cop read off the name from his notepad. "Twenty-two year old Hispanic woman. Works up at Edgewater Middle School as a Spanish teacher. No family living in the city. This is her home address. She lives alone."

"Hair's straightened. Probably recently." Solomon mumbled. "That and the makeup tells me she was either planning to go out or already did. We check her phone yet?"

The cop nodded. ""Unanswered calls and texts on the lock screen, but we haven't cracked it."

"We'll need to get started on the warrant as soon as we can. If we can run down where she's been, we can start making a list of everyone she was with tonight." Joan paused. She stepped past Lucille's body, moving over to the couch. "Huh."

"What?"

"Movie's paused at almost an hour in. The popcorn bowl on the couch is just...chock full of kernels."

Solomon gave a short nod as he went back to examining the body. He found the rest of the entry wounds in the center of her belly. Shot placement matched the pattern on the door. Fourth shot must've come later. Gently, he picked Lucille's body up so he could turn her over. Exit wounds on the back."Weird to eat a shitload of popcorn n' watch half a movie if yer gettin' ready to leave. Hey, you find any casings outside?"

While the patrol officer and Cartwright talked, Joan disappeared into a door in the kitchen.

""Nope. No bullets, either. Not yet."

"Guess our shooter was careful."

""Nobody's perfect. Forensics oughtta find fragments, at least. They'll pick through this place with a fine toothed comb."

A finger scratched against the back of his right eye. It twitched. Something told him 'careful' was an understatement. The forensics techs on this case were as likely to all simultaneously win the lottery as they were to find any trace of the gun their killer used.

Sol continued examining Lucille. "No sign of bruising. Doesn't look like the killer touched her after...hold up." He leaned in close, squinting at the back of her neck. Gentle as could be, he pressed a finger against a tiny red line there. Blood squirted out. "...Incision at the base of the skull. Tiny. Precise cut. Almost surgical."

""Popped an old cut open when she fell?" The red-haired boy offered with a shrug. Solomon shook his head.

"Know a fresh cut when I see one. What the hell was this guy doin' to her? Shit. We need'ta get her to the medical examiner if we're gonna figure anythin' out."

"Hey, Cartwright! I think I got something." Joan yelled from the opposite end of the house. "Get over here."

It took only twenty five steps to cross the living room, weave through the kitchenette and arrive at the victim's bedroom. It was remarkably clean. Certainly tidier than the rundown shitstorm he called a home. There wasn't a spot of dust or a speck of trash to be found outside the mini trashcan beneath the desk in the corner. Bed was even made. Only thing out of place were the clothes on the bed. Pink shirt, sheer black top and a pair of long gloves all tossed in a pile. Not in the hamper by the door with the other clothes. There was a pair of pink converse sat at the edge of the bed, too, off the shoe rack he spotted in the closet.

Looks like she was getting ready to leave after all. Yet she'd been home for at least an hour. Something didn't add up.

Sol crossed the bedroom to the bathroom, where he spotted Joan standing next to the sink. There was a makeup pouch and a hair straightener still sitting out. The medicine cabinet sat ajar, and Joan appeared to be holding a translucent orange bottle with a blue top from within. "You know what this is?" She handed it to him.

"Griseosporine. Power suppressant." His heart rate spiked. Solomon felt that thing inside his chest start to dance with glee. "Our vic's a Gray."
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Hidden 1 day ago → 1 day ago Post by Stormyx
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Stormyx ꜱᴘᴏɴꜱᴏʀᴇᴅ ʙʏ ʏᴏʀᴋꜱʜɪʀᴇ ɢᴏʟᴅ

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Eve
Death and all her Friends - IV Jason's Song
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Jason Rafferty was thirty-seven on April 1st five years ago. He was an executive at a tech firm and would work right out of Northbridge. He was a good at his job in that he was exactly what you’d expect. Wife at home, girlfriend at the office, one night stands at the bars and when Jason wasn’t working, or fucking, he was getting way too deep into online communities and absorbing and spiraling into conspiracy theories. The Earth was flat, politicians were likely to be lizards and part of a greater plan for the world. Grey’s were to blame for everything and everything terrible that had happened to Jason could be pinpointed right the way back to a Grey. Jason also had several favourite girlfriends at a Grey brothel called Hush-Hush and what he liked to do, or, have done to him there, was certainly to be kept hush hush indeed. When a compromising photo of Jason wound up in a sealed envelope on his desk, Jason and his paranoid mind assumed the mob was to blame and until that point, there had really been no reason at all as to why Jason would be targeted by the Raciti famiglia, but Jason had walked into a Little Italy deli one day and witnessed some extortion happening there and had quickly decided that he was from then a key witness to a serious crime and he would soon be fitted for cement shoes. (Jason also enjoyed True Crime podcasts and watching gritty television drama.)

The Raciti famiglia, to this day, have no recollection of his face in the deli that, but Jason never forgot.

So paranoid he became that the thought that any of the many, many, many, many women he had slept with might have tried to blackmail him was simply too easy a thought; and besides, they’d never do that, he was God’s gift to the Earth and none of the women knew about each other because he was careful and they worshiped him and what reason would they have to try to get money from him or show the pictures of him to his wife?

Jason died believing that he was hit by the mob. The truth was, that Jason spent so long looking over his shoulder in his paranoia and neurosis that he forgot to look ahead of him and was hit by a bus instead and on his last day on Earth he looked like the inside of a jam sponge spread all down the sidewalk.

Ironically, his mind and memories and thoughts would wind up circling the Raciti famiglia in the end and the nonpublic information of his tech firm wound up in the hands of Silvio Raciti.

It was almost so cruel that it had to be a joke that his paranoia and obsession would be the thing that lived on.


Eve had long come to terms with the fact that people in the world would find her strange. The coffee shop incident had stopped bothering her less than a minute after she’d left, and there was a part of her that was pleased her presence had made them uncomfortable and she smirked with the knowledge that no matter how crazy they found her, no matter how much they talked about her to each other, both of them, given even a crumb of chance, would jump at it to fuck her. So who really had the power? Tomorrow she’d go back and she’d do it again just to be a cunt and have them make her coffee like two good little boys.

It had been hours since and the cappuccino was gone and the cup sat empty on Eve’s coffee table next to a candle as she sat back in an armchair, magazine in hand. The last of the hangover had faded with time, hydration, and some sunlight and fresh air. It felt less like a cacophony now and more gentle chatter in the distance sitting below the sound of music playing through a small speaker set up on a bookcase.

She had never fancied a turntable and vinyls before, but after sifting through Paloma’s life, she had been wondering if one would make a nice investment and a mental list of albums she wanted to buy and display was already beginning. She had done her best to make the apartment as presentable as possible as Silvio was on his way over and he had a habit of getting irked by her small messes and mindless clutter and she had made sure to hide today’s shopping haul in the back of her closet.

The door opened and there was a long and awkward moment of silence as he walked in, glancing left and right as something caused his eyes to narrow. “Eve,” Silvio sighed, snapping her out of the drifting thought as he let himself in. He always did. He’d only just stepped across the threshold of her space when he followed up, “What the fuck is that sound?” he asked in an exasperated and irritated way.

“Enya,” Eve replied, barely lifting her gaze from the pages of her magazine as she skimmed the closing words of an article on the failure of the non-monogamy experiment. She was unsure of her own stance on it by that point, and whether she cared at all. Perhaps it was the article that had spiced up her spiteful train of thought some. “You don’t like it?” she asked, standing up and walking over to him, placing a half kiss on either cheek with a half hug to go with it. A standard Italian hello.

“No,” he replied flatly. “No I do not.” He glanced around at the room, stepping in at last to watch as she flicked a switch to turn it off. A breath he had been holding left him, and his shoulders softened. “So what’s going on?” he asked, in the straightforward way he knew how to.

ᴴᵉʳᵉ ʰᵉ ᶜᵒᵐᵉˢ ʷⁱᵗʰ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵒᵘᵗⁱⁿᵉ. ᶠᵘⁿⁿʸ ʰᵒʷ ʰᵉ'ˢ ʰᵉʳᵉ ᵗᵒᵈᵃʸ ᵒᶠ ᵃˡˡ ᵈᵃʸˢ.
“Just had a bad night. Too much to drink.”

“No shit. You called me six times–” his voice quietened and he looked over his shoulder to double check again that the door was closed. “Luca said there was a body. Talk to me, Eve.” She missed it, but there was an expectant glint in his eye.

ᵀᵉˡˡ ʰⁱᵐ ʰᵉ ᶜᵃⁿ ᶠᵘᶜᵏ ᵒᶠᶠ
She rubbed her temples and stepped into the kitchen; popping open a jar of biscotti and starting the routine of making them coffee. “I don’t want to.”

“What do you mean you don’t want to?” Silvio held a breath as he watched her hand tremble as she added the grounds to the pot.

ᴰᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵗᵉˡˡ ʰⁱᵐ ˢʰⁱᵗ.
“I just don’t.”

“You just don’t. Jesus Christ.” He lost his patience then and a flash of Silvio Raciti slipped through. He let the silence hang before he moved to step in and take over the coffee. “Let me do that honey,” he said, softer then.

“There wasn’t anything… Of interest.” she answered, lying, but daringly meeting his intense stare for a second. She sidestepped away from the pot, glad for his interruption, and for allowing her a moment to collect and mask the tell of a lie on her face. If she didn’t know the situation any better she’d have assumed this was his way of helping her with a small task. In reality, she just knew by now that Silvio and Joey and Ralph all thought her coffee came out like shit. They weren’t wrong. “When I… You know, when I’m in the life of someone else. It’s like I become them, and this one was… Normal.” she thought about explaining it to him further, to add details and depth and colour to the lie. ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵉᵛᵉⁿ ᵗʰⁱⁿᵏ ᵃᵇᵒᵘᵗ ⁱᵗ, ⁿᵒʷ ⁱˢⁿ'ᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ᵗⁱᵐᵉ She reached for a biscotti. A thin pistachio and almond one and she snapped it in half.

Silvio sighed, flicking the machine on to begin running through the filter. “And there wasn’t anything at all?” ᵀʰᵉʳᵉ ⁱᵗ ⁱˢ. ˢᵃᵐᵉ qᵘᵉˢᵗⁱᵒⁿ ᵗʷⁱᶜᵉ. ᵀʰᵃᵗ'ˢ ʰᵒʷ ᵗʰᵉʸ ᵈᵒ ⁱᵗ. he asked again. She just shook her head. “Alright,” he said, almost disappointed. “Just you know, some body shows up in the street,” he shrugged, “fuckin' weird," he relented with a shrug as his mouth pulled into a slight frown.

Eve bit down on the biscotti. ⁱˢ ʰᵉ ᶠᵘᶜᵏⁱⁿᵍ ˢᵗᵘᵖⁱᵈ? ᴰᵒᵉˢⁿ'ᵗ ʰᵉ ᵏⁿᵒʷ ʷʰᵃᵗ'ˢ ᵍᵒⁱⁿᵍ ᵒⁿ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ? “It’s Calder City, dad, someone is always showing up in the street.”

He couldn’t argue against that and a faint smile appeared. Hell, he’d been the cause of some of them, one way or another, over the course of his own life. “You’re right. Whaddaya gonna do?” he said. “I was just worried about you, but Luca got you home alright?”

“Mmhmm,” Eve answered, hardly able to remember seeing him, only knowing with a certainty that she had.

“I don’t want you going to Harborlight again,” he said. Turning the subject to its adjacent topic. “Something went down there last night anyway,” he added, watching the coffee drip through the grounds and filter and into the glass. “It’s not safe for you to be there,” he looked at her. “Clearly it isn’t. If you’re going to drink Eve then… Just, find a local haunt around here for the time being.”

ᴼᶠ ᶜᵒᵘʳˢᵉ ʰᵉ'ᵈ ˢᵃʸ ᵃˡˡ ᵗʰᵃᵗ, ʰᵉ ᵈᵒᵉˢⁿ'ᵗ ʷᵃⁿᵗ ʸᵒᵘ ᵈᵒⁱⁿᵍ ᵃⁿʸᵗʰⁱⁿᵍ. ʸᵒᵘ'ʳᵉ ᵃˡˡᵒʷᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵍᵒ ᵒᵘᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᶠᵘⁿ.
“The Velvet Room, then.” Eve answered.

“Sure, The Velvet Room, just, not Harborlight, or anything along the Docks. I do business along there and you don’t need to be in the middle of it.” He was either oblivious to the drugs, or acting like he was. Eve was unsure which of the two was better for them both.

Sometimes Eve wished they could address what they both knew and were aware of. She wondered from time to time about the fact they drew themselves like this, and wondered if this was always to be their path together. She wished to one day address that whatever and all it was that Eve did for Silvio, ate away at her, but that still she'd keep doing it. They'd dance around each other like this. Father and daughter, and worse than that too. She was holding on to the day that Silvio really saw the burden of it on her; recognised the hurt and toll and pushed his ambitions aside.

Silvio wished he knew how.

He poured into two small, mismatching cups of the coffee and they sat in the lounge for a while and drank it down and shared other conversation instead. What each of them would do that night – he had to go to his club and help an associate with something vague that he deliberately omitted the details of. She told him she had plans to take a bath, order thai food, and watch reality TV and maybe a movie if she could stay awake that long. He seemed relieved that her plans didn't involve leaving the apartment.

They made plans for the following Sunday at Medaglia's again as they hovered in the doorway for the elongated Italian goodbye, they shared a joke about Cosima. "Wonder what she'll have?" Silvio asked.

"Oh, probably the baccalà. She's adventurous you know." Eve answered and forced out the familiar laugh with it like it was the first time the joke had been told and was entirely original.


Silvio had left hours ago, and, for her part, she had ordered in her dinner, taken a bath, and relaxed in front of the television. That wasn’t the lie. Not a lie; an omission. Like father like daughter, afterall. She had zoned out of the movie and was thinking of all the things that had happened to Paloma, both the lead up to her death and of the colours of her life. She was still thinking of Paloma's apartment. The way that one of the windows had a slightly off ledge and fasten to it and she could feel in her own muscle memory the exact way to press against it to get it open. Paloma often forgot her keys, or left them somewhere else and had devised her own way to get home should she need to (which was often.) Paloma had shared that with Eve, explicitly. She was compelled to think of what was left behind of the life of a girl who could no longer fly.

She turned up the television until the volume of the compulsions simmered down to gentle chatter again.
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Hidden 1 day ago Post by Lord Wraith
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Lord Wraith Thunderbringer

Member Online
Once was a man who lived a life so mundane, it could only be true.

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Practically invisible to the world around him, life carries on while he felt perpetually stuck treading water just to keep his head

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afloat. Fortunately for the man, fate had different ideas and intervened with a heavy hand. Pushed into a corner, the man

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was driven to hide amongst dusty shelves and heavy tomes. In the silence, he could hear his name being whispered,

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over and over again, until his hand touched one particular opus. A worn book, bound in leather and tarnished steel. Though

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sealed, it opened for a price, and upon spreading its pages, the man's life was changed forever.
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Now, he is the Warlock they call...
LOCATION: GALLOWAY'S EMPORIUM OF ANTIQUITIES - MILK STREET
URBAN GOTHIC #1.05: HUNGOVER IN HANDCUFFS
INTERACTIONS: NONE
PREVIOUSLY: HURT
Everything felt so loud.

The cold wooden floor beneath him offered little to no comfort as Archie's nose was bombarded with the foul smell of something burnt and rotten. He still felt like he could throw up. Disoriented and unsure of either where he was, let alone when it was, he started to stand only to be immediately blinded by a beam of piercing light. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes, only to be tackled roughly onto his knees. Before Archie could even register what was happening, his arms were wrestled behind his back and clasped into two rings of metal that dug against his wrists. A thick, waxy ointment dripped from the cuffs onto his skin, numbing his hands and forearms.

Somehow, even amidst the acrid smell of burnt flesh, the potent odour of the ointment cut through. It was a relatively new tactic for the Calder City Police Department; topical Griseosporine wasn't yet widely available. But special weapons development had fast-tracked it for deployment in Calder City as a sort of beta test. Beyond the numbing, it should have no ill effect on Archie, at least as far as he knew. He only had limited exposure thanks to shop talk with a few associates from the District Attorney's Office, whom he still met up with for his monthly sessions of 'Gargoyles and Graves'.

"If you attempt to use your powers again, we will be forced to respond accordingly." The officer snarled, his hand feeling like it was going to snap Archie's arm in two.

Wait! You're arresting me?

Archie cried out internally as the handcuffs were placed on him and he was hauled upright. He looked from the uniform on his left to the one on his right. The two large officers dwarfed the scrawny, lithe man held firmly between them. Several body bags lay on the floor while another had been loaded onto a gurney and wheeled into the back of the ambulance sitting outside.

Hey! I have rights! I didn't do this! Where are my Miranda Rights? C'mon, officer, procedure doesn't just go out the window because you're a xenophobic prick!

"Alright, bub, let's make this easy. Just tell us what your powers are." The other office stated. Archie wanted to roll his eyes. Were both of them seriously going to ignore procedure?

"Powers?" Archied replied in a confused tone, finally finding a voice that wouldn't get him further battered and bruised in the back of a cruiser.

"I'm not Gray, I don't have any powers." He continued, his tone insistent as the officers scoffed at the response.

"More like 'not a Gray right now', eh? Had a little too much fun at the club, then? Maybe we scored ourselves a designer cocktail and had a little trip?" The officer asked, locking Archie's arms into a painful position.

"Let me guess, it's just a phase, you're just figuring things out." The second officer deadpanned. The first nodded along, before interjecting again.

"If there's anything I hate more than a Gray, it's a wannabe Gray."

Archie found himself unable to look away at the body bags. Who was inside? What killed them? He winced as fragmented memories suddenly came back to him. The mysterious book that called his name, the cut on his hand. His fingertips brushed against his palm, causing a grimace as they touched against the wide cut. He remembered the Grim coming alongside him, the black dog attacking the Dragons while fire rained from the pages of the book. Words that Archie didn't understand had come out of his mouth, and a power, a power unlike anything he had ever felt, flowed through his body.

The book!

He adjusted his thigh awkwardly, attempting to hide his excitement at the recollection of the book's gift.

Where was the book?

His eyes darted back and forth frantically, searching for the massive grimoire as the officers continued to parade him towards the cruiser. From the corner of his eye, underneath a nearby armoire, Archie caught a glimpse of the tattered page edges encased between hard covers bound in worn leather and edged in tarnished steel. A faint glow called to him before he hauled through the front door alongside the shattered bay window and loaded into the back of the awaiting police cruiser.

Archie resigned himself to silence, listening to the roar of the engine as the officers, disinterested in doing their job properly, piloted the vehicle away from the antiques store and towards the connection that would take them out of Milk Street and into the Sound, or central Pointe Bordeaux.

Any eye warily watched Archie through the rear view mirror before the hand shifted to the dial for the radio, turning it up as Archie let out a deep exhale and sank further into his seat, his hands still cuffed behind him.

"I hope that dial stays locked in on WKNT as our 'Days of Remembrance' special tribute week continues. This morning, we're taking a deep look into the 'Where Are They Now?' category. Today, listeners, I have a very special guest and a sort of local historian. You know her by the 'Snapshot' handle '@TheCapesCrusader', but typically she goes by Becca. So, Becca, I have to ask, since you know your Calder Capes pretty well, do you remember the Piper?"

The Days of Remembrance? When would they end? Archie rolled his eyes, stifling a scoff of his own. Growing up, he had always wanted to be a Gray. Now in adulthood, he had come to terms that it was never going to happen. Last night was likely a one-off, and he wouldn't ever see the strange tome ever again. It was hard living a life so mundane, so ordinary that you slipped through the cracks even amongst normal people. It was almost bizarre that Archie had found himself in handcuffs and not in the back of the ambulance in one of the body bags he had watched the paramedics carry out.

"I've got to be honest, with how his career ended, Paulie, I don't think anyone is forgetting the Piper. Ignoring the garish outfit and the terrible name, his horrifying abilities certainly kept him in the headlines. As I recall, the Piper used technology to augment his Gray abilities to implant subliminal messaging into the minds of his foes."

A feeling of discomfort crossed Archie's face. The way they were talking about 'The Piper' felt almost reminiscent of the strange voice he had heard last night. It had permeated every ounce of his skull to the point of being overwhelming, all while knowing his name. Perhaps, it was actually a good thing he'd never see that Grimoire again.

"Right, yeah," Paulie replied to Becca before she continued to speak.

"And despite being the marketing exec from hell, still held the record for the least amount of collateral damage right before he broke bad." The guest speaker noted.

"Always a shame when they do that. So where is he now?"

"Dead, killed in a shootout with the Pointe District Police in the middle of Swashbuckler's Splashdown." Becca informed both Paulie and the listeners. Archie remembered that day. It was several years ago now, if he recalled correctly, nearly eight. He had been in high school when it had happened. Their senior trip to the 'Splashdown' had to be cancelled because of the shooting.

"Oof, that is rough, buddy. Anyways, folks here's local artist and current Calder City favourite, DJ R3TCH!D Rat with 'I'm not Gray (& I Luv It)."

"Ugh, not this crap again," The officer driving griped as the other chuckled before taking a drink of the coffee he had kept stashed in the car.

"You are listening to the University station."

Even in the back of the police cruiser, Archie couldn't help but feel the catchy beat again. The vehicle came to a stop as the officers reached their destination and pulled it in front of the Pointe Bordeaux Precinct. Archie watched the passenger side officer exit the vehicle, while Archie found himself unable to stop his head from continuing to keep time with the rhythm of the music. Just as the officer opened the rear door to the cruiser, Archie felt the beat drop before looking up at the officer as he was pulled from the vehicle, opening his mouth only for the now viral lyrics to come out.

"I'm not Gray!"
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Hidden 1 day ago → 1 day ago Post by Melissa
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Melissa Melly Bean the Jelly Bean

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago


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Danny Reeves had been coming in on Thursdays for the better part of two years, and in that time had never once ordered anything different.

“The usual,” he stated, which was what he always said, but Sienna had started pouring his bourbon, neat, before he’d finished saying it.

“How’s the hand?” She asked, remembering how last week he’d come in with his knuckles taped and a story she hadn’t entirely believed.

“Better.” Danny replied, which was probably also not entirely true, but she let it go the way she always did - set his drink in front of him and exchanged a few minutes of pleasantries about nothing in particular. This was the part of the job that looked like hospitality, but was actually the maintenance of a room where people felt known. Danny Reeves felt known. He tipped well because of it and came back week after week because of it, and that, in the end, was how The Velvet Room worked.

She was halfway through refilling the wine glass of the woman two stools down when she felt the shift.

Nothing obvious - it never was, not at first. Just a change in register, two voices dropping out of the ambient texture of the room and into something with more friction. Sienna didn’t look immediately. She finished her pour, set the bottle down with a brief smile, and then let her gaze travel down the bar to where the two men had been sitting for the last hour.

They were standing now.

She had clocked them when they came in - together but not easy with each other, the kind of company that had history written all over it. They’d been civil through the first drink, quieter through the second, and somewhere in the third the civility had started costing one of them more than he was willing to keep paying. She had watched it happen the way she watched most things in this room: without appearing to watch at all.

Now one of them had his hand flat on the other’s chest.

Tossing down the cloth she was holding, she came around the bar, moving with a directness that parted the loose cluster of people between her and them without requiring a word. The brunette didn’t move quickly - quick implied urgency, and urgency implied that the situation had gotten somewhere beyond her, which it never did. By the time the one with his hand on the other’s chest had registered her approach, she was already there.

She looked at neither of them specifically. Just stood.

Then the air around them changed.

There was no visible indication of what she did - no gesture, no flourish, nothing that would have looked like anything to someone across the room. But both men stopped moving at exactly the same moment, with that particular totality of something that had been switched off rather than interrupted. The hand still pressed against the other man’s chest didn’t pull back. It simply ceased to be capable of doing anything else.

They stood there, fixed in place, the full weight of gravity in their immediate vicinity having quietly renegotiated its terms - pressing down through their shoulders, their arms, their feet against the floor, effectively pinning them to the spot.

The one who had started it exhaled a painful groan, and the nearest conversations faltered. Someone two stools down set their glass down slowly.

“Gentlemen,” Sienna declared, not raising her voice. She looked at each of them in turn, taking her time, letting them feel the additional weight of her gaze as much as the other kind.

“Not in my bar.”

A beat. Then another. The one on the left - the culprit - cut his eyes toward her with an unmistakable panic before arriving at something that resembled reason. He emitted another sound, not capable of saying much else with the force closing in around him, one that could be interpreted as agreement.

She held it one moment longer - not out of cruelty, just to be sure the altercation had fully resolved - and then released them. They moved like men who had forgotten how to trust their own legs, a fraction unsteady, neither of them looking at each other or at her as they collected their jackets and made their way toward the door. It swung shut behind them with a sound that was almost nothing at all.

Sienna didn’t hesitate, rounding the bar and returning to her place behind the counter.

“Sorry about that,” She stated at a volume that carried to the nearest few guests without making an announcement of itself. Danny, still firmly planted on his stool, raised his bourbon in a small, wry, acknowledgement. She didn’t sound particularly sorry.

She wasn’t, particularly.

Picking up her own drink and taking a sip, she turned to the register, swiftly closing out their tab and leaving herself a generous tip for the trouble. The room finished absorbing the altercation, which took, as it always did, almost no time at all.

The Pilgrim did not even register their presence. They were no threat, no danger. They were nothing.

Bret made a conscious decision not to involve himself in the matters of the drunken louts several stools down. When he first started doing, whatever it was he was doing, the thing he refused to call vigilantism, he told himself that he would only involve himself in matters that needed his attention. He would only help those in need, those whom the system had failed to help. Those, the many, that needed hope. Dealing with some silly men who couldn’t hold their drink was not something he needed to involve himself with. He saw enough of that nonsense in his local back home in Kendal.

What did peak his interest was the woman behind the bar. “Not in my bar.” She had said. That was intriguing. Not only had she somehow built a venue that allowed everyone through its doors and mostly behave themselves but she was also a Gray. Bret had felt the air pressure shift, ever so subtly as the two men went at it. He wasn’t sure if it was the air or the gravity but he noted everything seemed just a little heavier.

The longer he was in Calder, the less obvious things became. Sometimes he missed the simplicity of home.

“Decent pint, that.” He said allowed after taking a sip from his beer. He looked at its color, slightly hazy, a lovely golden hue and a flavour profile that bounced between stone fruit, mango and pineapple. Even the beer in this place was classy. He was pleasantly surprised. Since his move stateside he found getting a decent drink near impossible. Shame he couldn’t afford this place without Cressida’s discretionary fund. Damn the salary of a church volunteer.

He swiped some hair from his face and looked behind the bar, catching the eye of the woman working. Like the beer, she too seemed way beyond his price range. She was gorgeous in every sense. Long flowing hair, big brown eyes and great body that she very obviously looked after. He could tell that every inch of her presence was curated. She dressed appealing enough that people would be enticed to spend more but professional enough to know they never stood a chance. It was clever. She was clever. Which meant one of two things; either she knew about the King’s Blood and was in on it. Or it meant she knew and didn’t care. Tread lightly, Mr. Lowther.

“Well played.” He directed a smile at her. It was warm, inviting. It wasn’t charming or arrogant, it was subtle and real. “Where I come from, when the bar person breaks up a fight, a punter has to buy them a drink. Very English tradition but you’ve always got to bring a little home with you wherever you go, right?” Bret paused for a moment, never breaking eye contact with her. “So, can I buy you one, Miss…?”

She had noticed him before he spoke.

That was not unusual - she noticed most people, it was occupational - but he had warranted a second look when he came in, the kind of quiet, self-contained presence that tended to either mean nothing at all or something worth paying attention to. She had filed him under undecided and left it there while the evening ran its course.

He hadn't moved during the altercation. Hadn't even flinched, hadn't leaned in the way curious people did. Just sat with his beer and let it happen, which told her something. Most people had a reaction. His had been almost imperceptible - a slight stillness, a quality of attention that sharpened without showing. The kind of response that came from discipline rather than indifference.

Interesting.

Sienna let the compliment land without rushing to meet it, finishing the wipe-down of the section of bar in front of her before she looked up fully. The smile he offered was - she catalogued this without particularly meaning to - genuine. Not the smile of someone who had decided she was decorative and was telling her so. Something more considered than that.

"An English tradition," she repeated, with the measured quality of someone who was deciding whether they found something amusing. She found she did, slightly. "I'll admit that's a new one."

The corner of her mouth moved - not quite a smile, but the suggestion of one. She reached beneath the bar, poured a measure of The Mercer into a glass - her own, unhurried, the way she did everything - and set it on the counter in front of her rather than in front of him. A small but deliberate geometry. She picked it up, took a sip, and regarded him over the rim.

"Sienna," she replied, setting the glass down. Her eyes stayed on him a beat longer than was strictly necessary. "Sienna Mercer."

"And you are?"

“Lowther.” He raised his pint glass slightly over the pristinely polished bar. “Bret Lowther.”

He didn’t move his eyes from hers. He would like to say it was an old intelligence trick or something he learned in the army but it wasn’t. It was simply something he had picked up from his late mother. Eye contact always made a person feel seen and it was always a sure fire way of making sure that you were seen back. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sienna.”

Bret pulled the glass to his lips and indulged himself a little more. It really was a damn good pint. Once he had finished his libation, he took only a second to look around the room before returning his gaze to her. “It’s quite the little gaff you’ve got here. You can tell it’s well loved and judging by the presence you have, you’re the one that loves it.”

In this instance, there was no game to be played, at least not yet. He genuinely quite liked the look of the Velvet Room, though it definitely wasn’t his natural speed. And the charcoal suit that he wore felt more like a prison than an indulgence of comfort. “In fact, the place is so nice, I’ll even have another drink. Could I get another pint of whatever this lovely thing is and whatever your best Highland whiskey is. If you’d be so kind, Miss Sienna?”

Lowther.

She turned the name over briefly, the way she did with most things people handed her across this bar - not visibly, just in the space behind her eyes where she kept the things worth keeping. He held her gaze the way confident people did, but without the performance that usually accompanied it. No angle to it. She found she didn't mind that.

"Bret Lowther," she said, trying it once, as though confirming something to herself rather than to him. "The pleasure's mine."

She let the compliment about the room land without deflecting it, which was not something she did for everyone. Most people who commented on The Velvet Room were really commenting on themselves - on their own taste for having chosen it, on the story it told about them to be seen here. Mr. Lowther, she suspected, meant exactly what he said and nothing more complicated than that. It was, she was finding, quietly refreshing.

"Loved is definitely the right word," she said, glancing briefly across the room with the easy proprietary sweep of someone who had memorised every inch of a place without meaning to. "Most people say impressive. I like loved better."

She pulled his empty glass, placed it beneath the tap, and let the pour run slow and clean before setting it in front of him. The whisky took a moment longer - she turned to the backlit shelving, considered briefly, and selected something from the upper tier without hesitating. Twelve year Dalmore, neat. She put it beside the pint with the quiet certainty of someone who had made the right call and knew it, and the almost-smile that had been threatening since he mentioned English traditions finally made a proper appearance.

"Most people who end up in Calder City are here looking for something," she said, her eyes staying on him a beat longer than necessary. "And you don't strike me as a tourist."

She left the rest of the sentence unfinished, which was its own kind of question.

“Not a tourist, no.”

Bret admired her beautiful pour of his drinks. It was a skill that to most, wasn’t a skill at all. Anyone can pull a tap and let the liquid fall into it without a second thought. The way Sienna did it, slowing the whole thing down to the point the golden beer ran like a ribbon of liquid amber catching the glow of the evening light into the glass. The perfect sized ivory foam head, the depth of a fingernail was a nice detail. And her assumption that he’d like his whiskey neat, she was very good. Very good, indeed.

“Thank you.” He wrapped his fingers around the base of his pint glass and took a long, savoured mouthful before continuing to speak. “My Dad was from here. Thought I’d come check the place out. Living in Wicklow at the minute. Nothing like this place there.”

Wicklow might well have been a world way, yet in reality, it was literally the next door neighbourhood to the Lantern District where the Velvet Room was situated. It was not a pretty place but it also wasn’t one of the worse off areas of the city. It was an old part of Calder though, one of its earliest boroughs during the founding. In lieu of skyscrapers, it had gothic limestone buildings. Instead of neon signs, it had predatory gargoyles watching your every move. And instead of a superhero HQ, it had Saint Brigid’s.

“But you’re right. I get the feeling you often are.” The Pilgrim remained silent. There was no danger. At least not yet. He was on the right path it seemed. “I am looking for something.” Bret reached into his coat pocket and took out the small clear vial with the black crown engraved in it. He placed it gently in front of his whiskey, the Dalmore obscuring it from the view of prying eyes that didn’t belong to Sienna Mercer. “This is being sold at your club. I need to find out by who.”

He didn’t change his tone or his posture. Bret still spoke with the soft, almost jovial nuance that he had been at the start of their conversation. “I’m not the police and I don’t really care about what else is going on here. But if you know, maybe you can help me.”

She looked at the vial for a moment without touching it. Just looked, the way she looked at most things that landed uninvited on her bar - with the calm assessment of someone who had seen stranger things set down in front of her and had learned not to let her face do anything interesting about it. Then she picked it up, turned it once between her fingers, and set it back down on his side of the bar. Gently. Precisely. The black crown caught the amber light for just a moment before it settled.

"King's Blood," Her voice dropped just enough to belong to the two of them and no one else, and the almost-smile disappeared and was replaced with something more level. "I know it's moved through here."

“But what I don't do," she continued, "is keep a log of who orders what or who passes things under my tables. That's not the business I'm in." She held his gaze steadily, no apology in it. "The Velvet Room works because people trust that what happens here stays here. The moment I start talking about my guests, I don't have any."

"You seem like a reasonable man, Mr. Lowther," Sienna’s tone was neither warm nor cool, landing somewhere more considered than either. "So I'll be straight with you. I don't love that it's here. But what I know and what I'm willing to hand across this bar are two different things."

Her eyes dropped to the vial once more, briefly, then back to his. She picked up her glass again and took a long drink, a smirk gracing her lips.

"Lucky for you, I make a point of being very good company to the people I can't help."

Bret clicked his tongue, not in frustration but with a sort of respect. He couldn’t say he was surprised that Sienna wasn’t going to give him any information. He had figured that out pretty quickly. The Velvet Room’s reputation as a sort of Switzerland for all creeds and factions in Calder City had become legendary. The fact that Directorate Nine, is once and former employers had eyes on the place meant that its reputation was even crossing borders.

He pocketed the vial again. He now had to think of a new route to take. He had promised So-Mi that he would find Tae. That had to be his goal. The King’s Blood, its distribution, this El Jefe character. None of that was a business he needed to be mixed up in, not yet. At the very least, if he learned anything he could kick it up to Cressida and D9 and let them deal with it.

“Oh you’re helping me just fine, Miss Sienna.” He offered her another smile like a donation of good faith. He did not hold any ill will, quite the opposite really. Even though he was there trying to figure out this whole King’s Blood mess, he truly was enjoying his time at the Velvet Room. “You’re pouring me good drinks, which are the best I’ve had since I’ve been in Calder City. The ambience here is lovely and if you’ll indulge me, I must agree that the company is far, far superior than anywhere else.”

Bret turned away for a moment to drink in the sight of the room. There were so many people doing so many different things and socialising with those they probably never would in their day to day lives. The place was an achievement in every sense of the word. When he returned to lose himself for a moment in Sienna’s eyes once more, something occurred to him. Even after all this time, he still was never fully sure if it was him having the idea or if it was the Pilgrim opening up another path.

“Tell me, Miss Sienna. If you don’t feel compelled to help me here…” He reached for the whiskey glass, tracing his fingers over the rim. “…do you think you could help me elsewhere?”

The brunette set her glass down and leaned forward against the counter, closing the distance between them by a fraction - just enough to be intentional. When she spoke, her voice carried the same leisurely quality it always did, but with something warmer underneath it now, something that hadn't been there before the vial disappeared back into his pocket.

"Elsewhere," she said, turning the word over with the same consideration she'd given his name when he first offered it, "can mean a lot of things, Mr. Lowther."

She held his gaze, a smile settling comfortably in place.

"What did you have in mind?"

“Well, how’s your poker face?” For the first time since they began conversing, Bret’s smile lifted slightly, showing his teeth. It had been a good long while since someone had made him work this hard just whilst talking. It seemed that he had gotten so used to being punched, kicked, gouged and shot at that he had forgotten what a joy it was just to chat. Though even as much as he was enjoying himself, the work it seemed, never ended.

“You see, you said you can’t help me here. I respect that. Which means I have to find another way to get what I need.” He lifted the whiskey glass to his lips but then dropped it ever so slightly, his icy blue eyes giving nothing away to his sentiment. “There’s a poker game, information is the currency. What I would like is for you to come with me, looking fabulous and so that when you walk up behind me and kiss me on the neck, the other players are so distracted by your neckline that I can take them for everything that they’ve got.”

His smile disappeared between the rims of the glass as he imbibed the Dalmore. Sienna had made an excellent choice. “Then afterwards, maybe I can help you. I feel like that’s a fair trade.”

She looked at him for a long moment, something shifting quietly behind her eyes.

"A poker game," she mused, with the tone of someone turning a proposition over to check it from all angles. Not dismissive. Not convinced either. Somewhere in the middle, which was, she suspected, exactly where he wanted her.

Then she laughed - not loudly, not the performance of amusement but the real thing, brief and genuine, the kind that arrived before she'd decided to let it. It had been a while since someone had surprised her twice in the same conversation. Bret Lowther, she was finding, had a talent for it.

"Let me get this straight. You walk into a bar you’ve never been to in a brand new suit,” she began, "order a pint, buy me a drink for breaking up a fight, ask me what I know about King’s Blood - " She tilted her head slightly. "And now you want me to be your eye candy?”

She picked up her glass and took a slow sip, drawing out the silence that stretched between them.

"What makes you think I'm the kind of woman who leaves her bar with a man she's just met?" A beat. "And what is it that you think you could help me with?"

Bret sat silently, listening to her review of the situation. To her credit, she wasn’t wrong. Under any normal circumstances, this would seem like a terrifyingly strange scenario. A random man comes in, asks odd questions and then tries to steal you away into the night. That’s a horror movie right there. “Well firstly, thank you for noticing this is a new suit. I appreciate that.”

He leaned back in his chair, he now felt infinitely more comfortable than he had previously. It took Bret a minute to acclimatise himself to new surroundings but once he had, then he was in his element. The Velvet Room, the people in it, including the lovely owner, all transformed into new terrain to be mapped, new avenues and pathways for him to follow. The thing about his power, he never really knew the outcome of what would happen, it didn’t work that way. All he knew was that something was telling him that Sienna was a key to where he needed to go. The question that he was ignoring, as single minded a man as Bret is, was if she was the key to the right path or something else entirely.

“Let me just be straight with you, Miss Sienna. I’m looking for a young man, he’s seventeen. Still basically a kid and he’s got himself mixed up in business he ought not to be mixed up in.” He paused for a moment, thinking about the empty vial in his pocket and the dangers it posed. “His sister wants him home safe and I said I’d help. This led me to you, which I’m very thankful for, by the way.”

Bret polished off his whiskey straight and slid the empty glass back towards her. “You want to know what makes me think you’re the kind of woman to help me? It’s the look in your eye. A little glimmer. I can tell you understand the…gravity…of the situation but you also have a business to run. So there’s nothing you can do here but if you come with me, not only do you get to do some good, well…”

There it was again, that pregnant pause that had lingered between them from the moment their eyes first met across the bar. “…it’s exciting isn’t it? I’m asking you to take a chance, be part of something interesting, breaking the monotony of the day. And as far as what I can help you with? I’m sure we can figure something out over breakfast.”

Sienna listened to all of it without interrupting, which was not something she did for everyone. The gravity comment she filed away without reacting to. He knew, or suspected, and he had chosen to let her know he knew in the most understated way possible. She respected that more than she intended to.

But it was the seventeen year old that did it.

She didn't let it show - just a fractional shift in her expression, something that moved through her eyes and was gone before it fully arrived. A kid. She thought briefly of the vial of King’s Blood sitting in Bret’s pocket and what it meant for a boy that age to be anywhere near it, and something in her that had been weighing the evening's proposition quietly made its decision.

The brunette took her glass in her hand and tipped back the remaining liquid in one fell swoop.

"You’re lucky you look good in a suit.” She teased. “Give me ten minutes."

She pushed off the counter and caught Marcus's eye across the bar - one look, the kind that needed no explanation after two years of working the same room together. He gave a small nod in return, already moving into her place behind the counter as though the handoff had been planned all along.

“And Bret?” She was already moving toward the door that led to her loft. "Try not to charm anyone else while I'm gone."

Bret smiled the widest he had all night. “Yes ma’am.”

The path just opened up wider and the destination was becoming that much more unclear.

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Hidden 21 hrs ago → 21 hrs ago Post by Hound55
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Hound55 Create-A-Hero RPG GM, Blue Bringer of BWAHAHA!

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Worn knuckles at ten and two.

Fresh panels of drywall and screws secured in the back.

Bright lights penetrate through the intermittent rain, too light to pool in the curbs or lead to the erection of umbrellas on the crowded streets.

Qing Yuan rubs the base of his palm with the fingertips of the same hand.

As traffic draws the car to a halt, he looks at the afflicted area.

No divot. The only sign of what happened, scorchmarks from the muzzle flare.

"I don't like that look you're giving me, Ching."

Breathe in.

The pressure of the gun surging into his core.

"Which is a shame, since I just learned how to say your name, and where you live. We coulda been best buds."

Breathe out.

Hands push down, that which is life swirls and surges, instinctually pushed to where he knows will need the energy.

"But I think I've got a better way to make sure you don't go cancelling those cards early..."

They find the threat. One moment. Death calls for him. Life stands in the breach.

He'd never done that before. Never used it in that way.

Fingertips run at the scorchmarks on his palm. The heat of the moment was all that remained.

And with the last of the dwindling embers of the life giving chi which he'd taken from his mother's killer dissipating as it effervesced in its finality.

The heat of the moment was all that remained.

I wanted to kill him...

To replace that which he lost. Even if only for a moment. The urge was there.

Worn knuckles return to ten and two.

And a forehead falls to twelve.

"Such a fuckup..."


F L O W S T A T E
F L O W S T A T E



The couple moved swiftly, not so much due to the current sprinkling, but the threat of a further downpour to come.

The irony of the most minor of inconveniences, which led them to the most life-changing of risks.

This corner, that back alley.

They were so close to home.

But of course they were. That is why they saw the steel gleam.

The blade in the moonlight.

The husband stood in front of the wife to protect her.

But that only decided the order in which they would fall.

The Muramasa blade drank well that night. They had not been the first course for the evening.

They would not be the last.



It ended with a hand on his shoulder.

Pulled back to reality as if his actions were all from a dream.

There were no martial arts present. He'd thrown all of his learning aside for raw brutality.

And it might be why the mashed pulp of a man in front of him right now was still breathing.

"Qing... Qing, the police are coming. I've called them."

The gun was slid across the floor by the entrance. The clip and loose bullet, in the other direction under shelving.

Floating, as if outside of his own body. He got back to his feet and dropped the remains of the man on the shop floor.

"Go get some fresh drywall and I-I'll ring you up. Y-You don't need to pay for that broken stuff. We'll write it off as damaged in the attempt. Just come over here and clean your hands up first." The cashier pulled sanitizer and wet wipes from a corner of the counter.

Qing Yuan cleaned the blood from his hands, using multiple wipes and dried them on the back of his clothes once the red was gone.

He floated back to the drywall and returned with new panelling, paid and left without remembering saying another word. Although he was certain the cashier never stopped filling the air with words, he couldn't rightly remember any of what he'd been saying.

He just felt the absence.

It was practically all but gone.

That which he took from his mother's killer, mere motes floating in a shallow pool of his own chi.

And as he'd doubtless replenish his own chi in the future, they'd doubtless only be further diluted in the future.

That was the thing, that which he took from others was always only a finite amount. But his own could always be harnessed, further cultivated, replenished and added to with time and effort in the principles of qigong.

He'd never done anything like it before. And now, what remained of it was almost completely gone... and after today, would probably barely be felt again. Before he left, he looked down at the beaten man, all that remained in him was life's breath. He could take that too.

He could.

The bell rang as Qing drifted away with his drywall and screws.



The masked white figure moved behind the airtight glass. The specially sourced manuka flowers bloom bright in their glass prison, obscured intermittently by winged workers.

Sterling Silver sat behind the display with a glass of scotch and dwindling ice, watching the display.

The worker in white took the top off of the box and a plume of angry life erupted in his face.

Silver scowled and got to his feet. Swirled his glass, to attract his worker's attention with the movement. The man looked up and saw his expression, a look of horror for disappointing his employer obscured only by the screen of his mask.

"After expenses, I paid over $10,000 dollars for that Ligurian queen... You hit the smoke before you open the box."

He never raised his voice, it would have made no difference with the multiplex airtight glass, but his point found it's way to the masked man nonetheless, who nodded nervously and hit a button on the wall.

Smoke descended from vents in the apiary. The anger left the life, and the bees were quelled, the masked figure carefully raised a frame of perfectly constructed honeycomb from the box, holding it aloft in display.

Silver sat back in his chair, drank and watched whilst the honey was extracted.

His phone vibrated with a white screen. He answered soundlessly.

"With the latest purchases, we should have 87% of the property for the new development under control by the end of the week."

"Understood." He hung up. There was no thanks. No sign of appreciation. This was another worker performing his function for the man as to be expected. He finished his drink.

The carrot had worked well. And the stick had encouraged many more to bite at the carrot.

Silver got to his feet and walked back to prepare a second. He removed the ice from the freezer of the mini-bar fridge.

It had almost worked too well.

He reached up above the shelf of select antiquities, with the noteably missing katana, to the liquor cabinet and the 30 year old Glenfiddich bottle that awaited another pour. There was a 50 year Glenfaracas that was awaiting him in celebration for once the new development was complete. But until that day, it's not done until its done.

He glanced at the empty blocks where the blade had once been.

It was remarkable how effective a gift in the right hands could be.

Of course, for appearances, he'd had it reported stolen.

It wouldn't do him well to be connected with the works of that specific sword.

He'd found one more willing worker and the Muramasa blade had done the rest. Made him... even more willing still.

And the police report should put a nice neat bow on things when the work was done and it was time to draw things to a close.

The masked figure drew another frame from the beehive.

Silver swirled his scotch and raised it once more to his lips. Always wonderful, the fruits of workers put to best use.
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Hidden 5 hrs ago Post by Byrd Man
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Byrd Man El Hombre Pájaro

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Paladin

Finish the Job
Pt. 1


Beacon Heights

Little Walter snorted a line of crank off his large hunting knife. His eyes widened as it hit his bloodstream. His heart began to thump wildly in his chest. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. He felt like he could take on the whole goddamn world. The crank was part of his pre-battle routine, and he required it of all his men. Like the viking berserkers or the brave men of the Wehrmacht, they would be in an altered state of being when they achieved glory, operating on a higher plane of existence. He tucked the knife back into the holster back on his hip and surveyed the troops in front of him.

Six burly, tatooed bikers wearing the cutoff jackets that proudly proclaimed them as members of the Crusaders Motorcyle Club. The symbol on the back of the jacket was a knight riding a chopper, a sword extened and ready for battle.

“CRUSADERS,” he yelled to the six heavily armed bikers standing in front of him. “MOUNT UP.”

The men mounted their motorcycles and kickstarted them to life with deafening roars. They headed out from their clubhouse and into the night. Little Walter - as MC president – rode at the front. The nickname of “Little” was of course ironic. Little Walter stood at six and a half feet tall. His body was covered in a canvas of tattoos – the centerpieces of the tats was the German Iron Cross tattooed under his left eye and the “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN” tattooed across his neck.

The pack of bikers rode through the streets of Beacon Heights headed for Northbridge. A little bar there had recently been taken over by the Bandidos MC. Despite numerous warnings over the years, plenty of other MCs tried to get a toehold into Calder City. And each and every one left town bloodied and with their tails between their legs. Walter and the men behind him were the Bandidos welcoming party.

Walter reached down with his right hand and pulled the 12-gauge shotgun from its holster by the chopper engine. He skidded his bike to a stop outside of a parking lot crowded with people. The rest of the Crusaders fell in line.

The parking lot held people, cars, and plenty of motorcycles. The men nearest the bikes all wore cutoff vests with the words BANDIDOS MC on the back. Unlike the very white Crusaders, the Bandidos were hispanic.

“Calder City is Crusaders country,” Little Walter roared. "And around here we don't habla any fucking espanol."

He opened fire on the crowd as the six Crusaders behind him followed his lead.



Steel Acres

Paladin woke up just before dawn like always. He had managed to sleep through the night without nightmares, or at least ones so timid they hadn’t registered in his mind. These days a dreamless sleep was as close to a good night’s sleep as he could muster.

He climbed out of bed and quickly tucked the sheets back into place so it was military tight and perfectly made. The twin bed rested on a boxspring in the far corner of the studio apartment. Only 500 square feet meant the bed took up most of the apartment’s floor space, but for Paladin it was more than enough. He had a tiny kitchenette, fridge, and a toilet with a shower, a milkcrate nightstand beside the bed had a small pile of library books on it Paladin was in the process of reading. Compared to some of the places he had lived, this was a mansion.

His morning workout routine was the same as it had been the last twenty years: 100 push-ups, 100 body squats, and 100 pull-ups on a bar he had installed in the bathroom doorway. Simple bodyweight exercises that could be done anywhere any time. Over the years he had done the workout in the heat of the desert, on aircraft carriers enroute to undisclosed locations, and snowy blacksights near the arctic circle.

After the body weight exercises, Paladin hit the neighborhood in a pair of running shorts and a tanktop. He jogged five miles around Steel Acres. The run was as much about watching others as it was cardio. He would run with a baseball cap tucked down low, just in case a camera happened to catch him. He never used the same route and always kept an eye out for potential tails. When he was satisfied he saw nobody following him, he headed back to his third story walkup and had a shower and a breakfast of leftover beans and rice from the bodega around the corner.

Once that was done, Paladin changed into a simple outfit of jeans and a plain navy t-shirt. A long time ago he had learned about the “gray man” approach to dressing, simple but not too simple, the goal was not to stand out at all. There was a trend of people wearing tactical gear as an attempt to signal some sort of identity. Like most fashion choices in today's world it was simply performantive. The real operators and killers you wouldn’t give a second glance to.

He made his way to the package store a few blocks away. He had a PO box set up under an alias he had paid years in advance on in cash. The box never received mail, and Paladin never sent any. The real reason for the box was storage. Inside the box was a burner cellphone that had the batter and the sim card removed. He retrieved the phone and headed towards Old Calder. He wanted to be out of the neighborhood before turning the phone on and having it ping against any cell towers.

Paladin set up shop in a small park just inside the limits of Old Calder. He found a bench to sit on and turned on the phone. It buzzed with texts and voicemails. The number to his phone only passed by word of mouth, he had never written it down or shared it with anyone. It was why the screening process was so critical. There would be crackpots and crazy people just trying to get attention, an occasional slimy man or woman looking for “help” to take out their cheating spouse, and the chance that someone asking for help was in reality setting up a trap. It was up to Paladin to sort through everything to see who was genuine, who he wanted to help, and who he actually could help.

“Mr. Paladin,” the voice said on the line. A man’s voice, raspy from a lifetime of cigarette smoking. “I need help finding my daughter. I’m worried she’s mixed up with some bad people. Last time I saw her a few months ago, she was with this surly looking biker guy. They came to the house to get her stuff, I think she was high, we had an arguement and that piece of shit biker roughed me up. I tried to get the police to look into it, but she’s an adult… they don’t really care. I don’t have much money, but I just… need help. I'm worried about her, I'm worried she's dead. Call me back if you can. Please.”

That message was from two days ago. Paladin played it back and listened to the sorrow and hopelessness in the man’s voice. He leaned back against the bench and took a breath before calling the number back.



Little Walter stomped through the carnage of the shootout with blood spatter on his boots. Screams and moans filled the air. Most of the people had fled once shots had been fired. Some of the Bandidos had tried to stand their ground and fire back, but they had been gunned down by the Crusaders. Six dead Bandidos by Little Walter’s count, too many civilians wounded for him to count.

“Well, well, well,” he said slowly as he approached the man crawling on the ground. “Look who it is.”

The Bandido on the ground had the PRESIDENT tab on the back of his jacket. Little Walter’s counterpart.

“Well, jefe, lookin’ like it’s a bad day to be a Bandido.”

“Please,” the man groaned. “Don’t…”

Walter put his boot on the man’s back, smearing his Bandido’s jacket with blood. The Bandido began to cry and scream for mercy. Walter aimed the shotgun at the back of his head and pulled the trigger. The shotgun kicked and the Bandido went silent.

"Adios, amigo."
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Hidden 3 hrs ago Post by BrutalBx
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BrutalBx

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Bret had never particularly cared for casinos. The noise. The lights. The desperation masquerading as confidence. Still, this wasn’t any regular casino. Hidden beneath Skoll and Hati, a Norse inspired cocktail bar in Wicklow, it screamed opulence and excess. Places like this existed to convince people they were in control, right up until they weren’t. This one was worse. Because nobody here was gambling with money. Money was easy. Money could be earned back. Information was something else entirely. Information was leverage. Information was survival. Information got people killed.

The game itself was buy-in only, hidden behind three layers of introductions and an absurd amount of security. Officially it didn’t exist. Unofficially, it attracted exactly the sort of people Calder City preferred to pretend weren’t running things.

Criminals. Political operatives. Corporate intermediaries. Hell, even the occasional enhanced individual clever enough to realize power was temporary but secrets lasted forever. The buy-in wasn’t chips. It was knowledge. Every player arrived carrying something valuable like an account number or a blackmail file. Maybe even the location of some witness that needed to be silenced. Whatever was brought, it had to be enough of a truth to hurt somebody. The winner walked away with everything accumulated at the table. The losers walked away lighter.

Assuming they walked away at all.

Bret’s own contribution sat quietly in his pocket. A fragment of intelligence acquired during his years with Directorate Nine. Not enough to compromise national security. Not enough to start a diplomatic incident. Just enough to buy a seat at the table. Just enough to hurt if he lost it.

The jacket concealed a shoulder that still hurt every time he moved it. His ribs weren’t much better. The fight earlier had left him with fresh bruises and several new reasons to reconsider his life choices. Unfortunately, reflection could wait. Tae Park couldn’t. Bret intended to leave with at least one new piece of the puzzle. Preferably before somebody decided to shoot him.

Again.

His odds of achieving that seemed approximately fifty-fifty.

Multiple different games unfolded around him and his companion for the evening, the heartbreakingly beautiful Sienna Mercer. As he leaned at the bar, ordering their drinks, he couldn’t help but admire the effort she had put into getting ready for their “date.” She looked phenomenal, as requested. Her dark dress making every line and curve of her form appear sculpted by Gods.

“Feeling lucky, Miss Sienna?”

Sienna had walked into a lot of rooms.

Rooms designed to impress, to intimidate, to seduce - she knew what that architecture felt like, had learned early how to move through it without letting it do any of those things to her. This one was doing all three simultaneously and doing it well, which she noted with the detached appreciation of someone recognising a craft they respected even when it was being deployed against them.

She kept that to herself.

What she let show was something else entirely - a version of herself that was softer at the edges, easier, the particular warmth of a woman who had somewhere better to be and had chosen here instead. Her dress was dark, the kind of cut that followed rather than announced, a neckline that stopped precisely where intention became statement, no further and no less. Something about the fabric caught the light of the room differently than it had caught the amber pendants of The Velvet Room, holding it rather than deflecting it. Her hair was down, and she had added exactly the right amount of jewellery - not much, just enough to catch the eye and hold it a moment longer than expected.

She had, it seemed, taken his brief seriously.

The brunette accepted the drink Bret handed her and leaned into him slightly, just enough to sell it, her shoulder brushing his as she brought the glass to her lips. To anyone watching they were simply that - a couple at a bar, her attention on him, his world temporarily hers for the evening.

Her eyes, however, told a different story. They moved across the room with the quiet, practiced ease she had spent years developing behind a bar - taking in the players at the nearest table, the positioning of the security, the exit she had already noted without appearing to look for it. The particular stillness of the man in the corner that meant he was holding something and knew it.

"Lucky?" she said, her voice low, pitched for him alone, her gaze drifting back to him with the expression of a woman who had nothing on her mind but the evening ahead. "I don't tend to leave things to luck." Then, quieter -

"Tell me who we're looking for."

“I’m not sure, yet.” Bret responded honestly. He had been trained in deception. He knew how to lie, how to make his heartbeat and pulse. That sort of thing came easy to a point. Yet for some reason, he felt no need to lie to Sienna. He wondered, quietly if there was something more to that than even he knew.

Coming to the game was a shot in the dark, a Hail Mary. He didn’t like to call himself a vigilante for many reasons. One in particular was that he didn’t have the street contacts that others in the same sort of profession did. He didn’t have informants or snitches or whatever the Americans liked to call them. He and his gut, the Pilgrim and for the lack of their better judgment, Cressida and now Sienna.

He brought the rim of his glass, which was coated with a sweet citrus dust to his lips and took a gentle sip from his old fashioned cocktail. Now was the time that either his people watching skills needed to come in handy or the Pilgrim needed to pull its finger out of its arse and lead him down the right path. As his blue eyes scanned the faces at the table, he spoke, not in hush tones but quietly enough that only Sienna could hear him. “Each table has four players and a dealer. We need the ones that will either lead us to Tae or El Jefe.” The fact that he said “Us” was not lost on him. “It’s a law of averages. We just need to find the right three players, and I’ll make myself their fourth.”

For a moment, he broke away from his room watching, taking stock of the cameras that had locked onto himself and Sienna. Bret turned into her, gently pushing a strand of hair down her face and back behind her ear. “Smile.” He spoke as he played the doting lover for the gogglebox. “You’re on candid camera, darling.”

The brunette didn't miss a beat.

The smile that followed his touch was warm and unhurried, the kind that reached her eyes just enough to be convincing - she had spent enough years reading people across a bar to know exactly what genuine looked like, and how to wear it. Her free hand found his arm, a light touch at the elbow, the easy familiarity of a woman comfortable in the company she was keeping. To the cameras, to anyone watching, it was effortless.

It was effortless. That was something she decided not to examine too closely.

"Yes, darling," she mimicked, the word landing with a faint, private amusement that only he was close enough to catch, her eyes staying on his for just a moment longer than the performance strictly required.

Then she let her gaze drift over his shoulder - back across the room, back to the tables. Four players, a dealer. She let her eyes move across each face in turn with the unhurried patience of someone who had spent years watching people decide things they thought nobody was watching them decide.

"Third table," she stated quietly, her lips barely moving, the smile still in place. "The one with his back to the wall. He's been watching the door since we walked in." She brought her glass to her lips and took a slow sip. "I'd start there."

“Careful.” Bret teased as he looked at the reflection of the table in her big brown eyes. “You keep feeding me good intel, I’ll get down on one knee right here.” He smiled widely as he fully turned to view the table she had pointed out. Third table in. Four players and a dealer. As with all the staff, the croupier that was handing out cards was dressed in all black. A form fitting dress that, much like Sienna, was deliberately woven to attract people to her table.

The players were a different breed between all of them. The first, with his back to them, the one Miss Mercer had mentioned. He was a pro, you didn’t need to see his eyes for that. Crisp black suit, perfectly quaffed hair. The slight coffee color of his skin meant he was likely Hispanic. Not a terrible place to start when looking for a man called El Jefe. The second man at the table was drunk as a skunk, a cowboy based on the white ten gallon hat he was wearing. Bret had clocked him when they had first entered, mostly because the drool visibly dripping from his mouth when Sienna walked by was unmissable. The third man seemed oddly familiar, in the way that, you may not know a person but their face rang some sort of bell. The fourth at the table was a woman, with ashen hair and scars across her face, hidden by dark sunglasses.

“Alright, we need to get rid of one of them so I can sit in.” Bret let his hand drift to the small of her back, though his eyes never left hers as they silently asked for consent. The hair on his neck began to stand, not from the electricity he was feeling from her gaze but from the waiter passing by with a tray of drinks, heading towards table 3. The Pilgrim was opening a path but this was not one that he could walk down alone.

“If you’ll indulge me, Sienna. The waiter that just went by, I need him to drop his drink on the cowboy. Would you be so kind as to make that happen the same way you handled those boys at the Velvet? Just trust me on this one.”

The hand at the small of her back was light, questioning. She answered it by shifting fractionally closer - for the cameras, she told herself, which was mostly true. Sienna let his request sit for exactly the length of time it took her to bring her glass to her lips and take a slow, unhurried sip.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she murmured, her eyes staying on his over the rim. "But if I could do such things-" A beat. She set the glass down. “You’d better be ready.”

Her gaze drifted across the room - not quickly, not with any particular intent that anyone watching might clock - settling briefly on the waiter making his way toward table three, the tray balanced at shoulder height, the cowboy's white hat a beacon at the far side of the table. She didn't move. Didn't gesture. Didn't do anything that looked like anything at all.

The tray tilted.

Just slightly, just enough - a fraction of a degree, the kind of shift that looked entirely like the waiter's hand was not completely level. The drinks slid with the easy inevitability of physics doing what physics did, and the cowboy took the full weight of it across the front of his shirt with a sound that cut briefly through the low murmur of the room. The brunette had already looked away by the time it happened, let the commotion settle for exactly the right number of seconds, then tilted her head toward the now empty seat at table three.

“Care for a game of poker?”

“Give me three rounds, then come over.” Bret moved away from her with a wink. This night had started to take some unexpected turns and for all of his ability to predict the way forward; he had no idea how the rest of the evening was going to unfold.

As the cowboy left table three to go clean himself up, the former intelligence officer danced his way around the other tables, playing the part of the slightly tipsy rich boy that these sort of folk would have loved to capitalize on. “Gentlemen…oh and lady. Sorry to disturb you but it looks like you need a fourth.” He leaned down on the table, licking his lips like a feral dog. “Mind if I buy-in?”

The croupier motioned with her eyes to the center of the green felt. Where in normal casinos that area of the table was populated by multicoloured poker chips, in this instance there instead sat some smoking guns. “If you read the welcome pack, sir, you would know this isn’t the usual buy-in. Mister Aguilar has generously put in a list of smuggling routes. Miss Sauvage has offered up her assassin services and Mister X has antied up with blueprints for a new technology. What can you offer, Mister…?”

“Pilgrim.” Bret casually sat in what was once the cowboys chair and placed his drink on the beer mat. He could now directly see most of the casino and especially he had eyes on Sienna. He blew her a “drunken” kiss before turning back to the dealer. “Those are some good bets. Though, I think I can raise the stakes a bit.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen drive, placing it with the other bets. For this next part, Bret raised his voice a touch. “Oh this little gadget is the name of every Directorate Nine agent active in these United States. Their cover identities, their locations and their schedules.”

The room fell near silent as it processed the information he had just given.

“So, are we going to play or what?”

Sienna caught the wink as he moved away and felt, to her mild irritation, the faint warmth that crossed her cheeks before she could do anything about it. She turned back to the bar before anyone could make anything of it, reaching for her drink with the ease of a woman who had absolutely not just been caught off guard by a wink from a man she had known for the better part of an evening. She signaled for another drink, and settled into the particular patience of someone who knew how to wait without looking like they were waiting. Around her the room continued its quiet, expensive business - cards and conversation and the particular atmosphere of people who had decided tonight that the ordinary rules didn't apply to them.

She was watching from the corner of her eye when he sat down and blew her the drunken kiss across the room. She caught it - performed catching it, rather, pressing her fingers briefly to her lips with the delighted, slightly indulgent expression of a woman watching her companion be charming.

Then he reached into his pocket and put the drive on the table.

Her smile stayed just a fraction too still, just a beat too long - the difference between an expression and a mask, visible only to someone who had been watching her carefully all evening and knew what the real thing looked like. He had sat down at her bar tonight as a man looking for a missing teenager. That was what he had told her.

Seems it was the only thing he had told her.

Sienna reached for her drink and finished it, then signalled for another without taking her eyes off the table.

The first round told her that Bret played the tipsy rich boy convincingly enough that at least two of the other players had already decided he was the easiest mark at the table. The second told her that he was letting them think so, which was considerably more interesting. By the third she had worked her way through half of her fresh drink and formed a working opinion of each player - the one with his back to the wall who gave away nothing, the woman with the scarred face who gave away slightly more than she intended to, and the third whose familiarity she still couldn't place but filed away regardless. Picking up her bag as the dealer dealt the fourth hand, she sauntered towards table three.

She approached from behind, one hand settling lightly on Bret’s shoulder as she leaned down, her lips finding the side of his neck with the easy familiarity of a woman who had done this a hundred times before. She hadn't, for the record. But nobody at this table needed to know that.

Then she straightened, looked across the table at the assembled players, and reached over his shoulder for his drink.

“Don’t mind me,” She took a long sip and set it back down. “I just came to watch.”

The plan worked perfectly. As much as he wanted to enjoy the moment of a beautiful woman kissing him, Bret watched his fellow players and his senses began to tingle.

The man that the croupier had identified as Mister Aguilar grimaced at the sight of the “lovebirds.” Whilst the woman called Sauvage began to moisten her lips. Mister X, however, did not flinch, did not move. Aguilar reached into his pocket and slammed down a familiar vial with a black crown, only this one was full of the bright orange liquid that had come to be known as King’s Blood.

“Add this to the pot.”

Then something changed. It was like a scent. Something entered into the atmosphere of the table and it wasn’t Sienna’s perfume, although that in itself was to die for. At first, Bret thought it smelled like the damn air, just before a rain shower. Then mould, maybe? The Pilgrim began to scream in his ear that a fork in the road was about to appear. He saw it a few seconds before it happened. Springing up to his feet, Bret grabbed Sienna with both arms and pulled her away from the poker table.

The woman called Sauvage lunged forward, grabbing the vial of King’s Blood before anyone could react. There was no pause as the table flipped and she quickly ingested the drug, container and all. The room began to move but it was slow, these men and women were not people of action. They were those behind the ones that did the dirty work. A split began to appear from Sauvage’s lip that ran down to her chin. Then the split opened wide like a Dilophosaurus and blood spewed out, hitting Aguilar square in his face. Bret could see how it began to burn, melt and sear his skin away from the bone.

The smell was sickening.

Sienna had seen a lot of things behind a bar. Fights, breakdowns, confessions, the full spectrum of what happened to people when the night ran long and the drinks ran deep. She had seen things in this city that most people wouldn't believe over breakfast. She thought, on some level, that she had developed a working immunity to being surprised.

Yet, she had not accounted for watching a woman's face split open like a wound and dissolve a man's flesh from three feet away.

But what stayed with her, even as the room came apart around them, was that Bret had already been moving before any of it happened. His chair scraped back, his hands found her arms with a certainty that brooked no argument, pulling her away from the table before she had registered there was anything to move away from. She let him move her for exactly as long as it took her composure to locate itself. Then she found her footing, her hand closing around his arm, and looked up at him with the particular expression of someone filing a very long list of questions away for later.

“What now?” The brunette whispered amongst the chaos, heart racing.

Instinct was an incredibly powerful thing, Bret had always believed that. And even though his instincts were somewhat Grey-powered, he still trusted them beyond anything else. In that moment, he found himself torn between too many different instincts at once. The first was telling him to help get people out, even if they were mostly morally bankrupt. The second was telling him to grab the info that had been dropped and run. The third, well the third was the one that he was likely to listen to.

“Now I’ve got to go to work.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and let the pathways around him open up. He inhaled as his mind travelled the phantom roads of choice and the Pilgrim guided his way. Grabbing the chair that he once sat on with a single hand, Bret spun his full body with a great amount of force. He launched the chair at Sauvage to distract her before rushing at her with all the might that his frame could carry and tackling her by the waist to the far side of the room.

Mister X, who had not moved from his seat, casually leaned down and picked up all the paperwork and the pen drive that had been the point for the table. Gathering them up all neatly, as if filing was something he cherished, he moved over to Sienna and offered them up. “He was going to win anyway.”

Simultaneously, Bret narrowly avoided another spit of acid from Sauvage before spinning and elbowing her in the nose, the only target on her face that wasn’t terrifying. He didn’t manage to hit the second time, being thrown back across the floor by a kick and coming to a stop a few feet from Sienna and Mister X, who casually shot a finger gun at the pair before sauntering off into the chaos.

“Next time we go on a date, can we just go to a quiet pub?” He dragged himself to his feet and reached into his jacket. He didn’t want to do this. He had to give her the choice. Bret pulled a gun and aimed it at Sauvage.

“Go now. It’s the only warning you’ll get.”

Sienna had filed Bret Lowther under many things over the course of the evening. Intelligent. Perceptive. Attractive. Considerably more interesting than he had initially appeared. What she had not filed him under was this - the chair already in his hand before she had fully processed the need for one, his body moving with the particular economy of someone who had done this before and expected to do it again. The tipsy rich boy was gone. What was in his place had clearly been there the whole time, waiting with considerably more patience than she had given him credit for.

She watched him go and felt the read she had been building on him all evening quietly revise itself. She was, it seemed, going to have to start a new file.

Mister X appeared next to her then, a man who had decided the evening's chaos was someone else's problem, holding out the gathered intelligence and the drive with the mild, administrative air of someone returning a lost item. She took it without hesitation - smoothly, naturally, tucking both into her bag with the same composure she might use to accept someone’s payment at the bar.

She turned her attention back to the room - to Bret dragging himself to his feet, to Sauvage still standing at the far end of it, to the gun appearing in his hand. Had he had that the whole time?

"Next time," she replied simply, "I'm picking."

Then she looked at Sauvage - really looked, the way she looked at things she was about to do something about - and waited.

Sauvage moved.

Sienna reached for the thing that lived just beneath the surface of her attention. The same quiet renegotiation of terms she had used in her bar, in her room, on her conditions. This was none of those things. But the boy was seventeen, and Bret was bleeding, and the gun in his hand deserved better odds than he currently had.

The weight came down.

Sienna had never seen firsthand what King's Blood did to a body's tolerance of her powers, but Sauvage's movements quickly slowed, her frame pressing toward the floor under the incremental addition of gravity doing quiet, insistent work.

Except it wasn't quiet. Not this time. Sienna felt it immediately - the resistance, the way Sauvage pushed back against the pressure with a force that had no business belonging to a human body. She held it, jaw tight, the effort of it moving through her in a way she wasn't accustomed to and didn't particularly care for. Her free hand found the edge of a nearby table without meaning to, steadying herself against something she couldn't let show on her face.

"Bret." Just his name, quiet and clipped. She kept her eyes on Sauvage and said nothing more - the line of her shoulders said rather a lot.

There it was. In all its glory.

Bret was right. She was a Grey and now she was controlling Sauvage. Or more specifically, she was holding her. They would have a lot to talk about after all this was over. But first things first.

He didn’t say a word as he pulled the trigger of his gun three times. The first two entered Sauvage’s open mandible, one going straight through her skull and piercing the wall behind her, the other lodging herself in the base of her brain stem. The third bullet went lower, a fair few feet, off slightly to the left hand chest and just slightly above her breast. The heart. Sauvage crumbled to the floor in a pile, acidic blood seeping from her mouth and beginning to burn a hole in the concrete floor.

He lowered the pistol to his waistline and wiped a fresh wound on his face with his palm. Bret refused to get blood on his new suit, Cressida would murder him dead. He turned his head slightly to look at Sienna. He didn’t shy away from her eyes, he couldn’t. They would have to talk about this. The Pilgrim had gone quiet but he knew it wouldn’t be for long. They didn’t have the time to dwell and fester in the chaos.

“So, late dinner?”
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Collaboration with @Melissa


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