Sander hadn't been home, but his assistant had been there and had returned her items to her. Her phone was erupted with messages from Quinn and others Rats; messages she decided to ignore for her own sanity. The walk to her apartment consisted of half a pack of cigarettes. She made it to her front porch before her sense of smell finally drifted back. At first she thought she was smelling the mildewing corpse of a wino someone had gutted in the alley nearby before realizing that the putrid stench actually came from her. It didn't seem to bother Sammy very much, for the undead dog still pelted her with puppy kisses as she threw open the door to her sad, pathetic apartment. She tossed her bag containing Cain's book on her one and only piece of furniture, disregarding the plastic crate used as a table. After an uncomfortable shower consisting of struggling with keeping her bandages dry, she flopped down onto the couch. Grabbing the book from the bag, Valorie shifted herself into the most comfortable position she could find on that moth-eaten curbside pickup and popped a few pills into her mouth. Cain had said no
hard drugs.
They give these shit to preschoolers, she thought as she stuck her nose into the book.
She didn't remove it from the book for several hours.
It was well past midnight when Cain opened the door to his apartment. At first, he had tried to be quiet; after all, maybe there was a girl sleeping in his bed. But the twilight of the dark room was enough to see that both the bed and couch were empty. Valorie had not come back. His mood had already been fowl but this not entirely unexpected disappointment weighed almost as heavily on him as the deal he had shaken hands on and it tipped him over the edge. The door fell into the lock behind him as he flicked on the light and, with heavy steps, grabbed a bottle and a glass from a cabinet before slumping down on the couch. Tomorrow would be a long day, another one, but that could wait. He hadn't had a drink since yesterday morning and he felt like celebrating.
"Here's to doing the vampire's dirty work", he murmured bitterly as he downed the bourbon in one big gulp.
He could have checked where Valorie was - if he focused on the life bond, nothing would be able to hide her from him, not for another day or two - but he would have felt it if she was hurt and if she had decided not to come back, he wouldn't force her. On any other day, he might have been restless enough to go out and look for her but not tonight.
Tonight, he drank another glass in one and filled yet another with the golden liquid as his mind wandered to the terrible deals, acts of cruelty and depths of hell this whole 'Slayer' affair had led him to and had yet in store for him. He had been following leads since before Nyxvira Bloodbloom called but to find out what the Nyctari knew and
take it from them... that was an offer he couldn't refuse, even if Concetto had asked him for much more.
With another hearty sip, the first tendrils began to ensnare his brain, wrapping it in cotton as he lazily stared at the note he had previously left on the doorstep for Valorie: 'Have to work late - Eat/drink/read what you want but don't touch the Blood Magic books. I'll know if you did.'
So what if he had to deliver a stranger to the fangs of the Nyctari. Hadn't he done worse already?
Yes, I have. But only to those I knew deserved it...
An alarm went off on her phone and pulled Valorie out of her zone. Grabbing her cell, she winced as she saw how late it was; she had been so focused on reading that she had almost missed her plans with Cain. The book in front of her was shoved full of bookmarks for clarification she wanted from her new teacher. Surely, he couldn't be upset at her if she had spent the time actually being productive? Throwing on some pants and zipping a hoodie up around her top, she twisted her hair into a quick and sloppy bun before grabbing Sammy and tucking him into her hoodie. Walking out the door, the silent dog shifted around wildly with excitement as she tried to cradle him. It would be his first time outside in a long time, and although it was dark the poor creature was still too obviously ghoulish for her to just walk him like a normal dog. He rose too many probing questions. Just because Cain was okay with her necromancy did not mean the city was.
It was well after midnight when she made it to his apartment.
So much for that drink, she thought. Sammy's head poked out of the top of the zipper, resting beneath her chin and making her appear to be some kind of horrific late night monster movie experiment gone wrong. Testing the handle and finding the door locked, she rapped her knuckles lightly to the tune of shave and a haircut. As the door opened, Valorie pulled Sammy up so that the dog was blocking her face.
"Sorry I'm late," she said. "This one is kind of a handful. He kept getting distracted."
What looked at Francis from where Valorie's face was supposed to be was... hideous: It had unmistakeably been a beagle but its eyes were milky white and dead. One of its ears had been half torn off and probably stapled back in place - Cain could see where the staple had torn through the skin when it was ripped off - and now hung at a weird angle. Its colors were a mix of brown, white, black, along with green and red where the fur was missing and the toughened skin had begun to rot. It was these naked patches of him where the stitches and staples were the most visibly. The dog looked like a teddy bear after a moody kid had had its way with it...
... and then put it back together, crying, hands shaking, apologizing over and over. It
was hideous, but it was also visible at first glance that Valorie had loved this animal so much she did what she could as quickly as she could to bring it back to life, and that made the old mage look upon it with kinder eyes. It lolled its tongue, breathed excitedly - even though that was no longer nessary - and probably even wagged its tail inside her sweater; if not for its visible flaws, Cain couldn't have told it from a normal dog at this time, and for a first attempt at magic, that was impressive indeed. He was no necromancer and had never had a particular talent for this school of magic but he knew that most creatures that were revived barely did anything besides breathing to prove that they were animate again; to revert even a mouse back to its original behavior was challenging.
Its soul, at least, seemed intact. There wasn't much that could be done to physically restore it - not without asking a vampire for help - but perhaps some of the damage could be hidden.
Valorie said something that was muffled by a mouthful of fur - did she complain about the dog's weight? - and it shook him from his reverie; he stepped aside.
"Right, come on in."As she passed, they could both make out the smell of the other: He the scent of rotting dogmeat, she the one of alcohol on his breath. While she set the dog down who seemed to take a keen interest in the leg of the coffee table, Cain closed the door and locked it once more. Without a word, he grabbed another glass from the cabinet and set it on the table. Somewhere in his inebriated mind, a smart little voice suggested they should eat dinner, but his talk with Concetto had robbed him of all appetite. Instead, he filled her glass with the hard liquor and refilled his glass for the fourth time before sitting down.
"I had to work late, so I wasn't on time either", he explained, his words coming out so clearly as if he was completely sober; there was something in his tone, though, that was different from this morning, something that made him sound and look older.
"I wasn't sure you'd come back.""Come on, what kind of girl do you think I am?" she said, pretending to be offended as she slumped into a couch near the table and pressed the glass against her lips. "I'm not that unreliable—I'd never turn down a free drink."
Winking, she tipped the glass back of bourbon back. It turned out to be stronger than she had guessed.
Bad idea, bad idea, she thought as the liquor burned her throat and brought tears to her eyes. Her wink had turned into more of a grimace as she forced herself to finish the drink, turning her head and giving one heavy cough in her fist in an attempt to not appear like a complete chump. Perhaps she could mix it with some soda or something to take the edge off. She knew not to ask. For starters, the bottle looked expensive, and people who drank bourbon were always so precious about the purity of their liquor. Although, really, when most of the liquor she drank came out of giant, bulk-sized plastic bottles found below the bottom shelf, anything in a bottle looked expensive. Maybe she just wanted to impress Cain. Regardless of the reason, she gave a satisfied "ah", set the glass down on the table, and expectantly looked towards the bottle.
"Delicious," she said, leaning towards the table so she could prop her head up with her hand. Her finger idly ran around the rim of her empty cup as she looked at Cain. Compared to this morning, he seemed exhausted, beat. It made her curious. "I imagine running around town rescuing damsels in distress would be pretty tough. Wanna talk about it, or...?"
He leaned back into the couch and the leather groaned under his weight. His eyes were glued to the dog as it continued to very slowly explore the apartment; it couldn't be easy to take in unfamiliar smells when you smelled like dead animal and your nose was rotting off.
"Let's just say that I had to meet somebody I'm not fond off and, in order to get something I need, I have to do something without knowing how it's gonna turn out", he explained cryptically. Cain may have despised the vampires but he was a man of his word nonetheless.
"When I left the police, I thought I was freeing myself from having to watch whose toes I'm stepping on and that I could just do jobs for whom I pleased. But that's not how this city works. No matter what you do for a living, everybody's a whore: We all have to do things we hate ourselves for to stay afloat. My mother had it right though - at least a prostitute only has to sell her body, not her soul."Francis rose the glass to his lips and let more liquid fire run down his throat, savoring the burn.
"Smart woman, my mother. And she had a good heart, despite everything this city had her do. If she hadn't tried to make things better for other prostitutes, she might have lived out her days in peace. Kindness gets you killed here."He looked at the girl next to him who listened attentively. He had it all wrong: His life didn't start revolving around women a day, a week, a month ago. It had always been that way. That's what happened when you saw women getting punished every day.
"It's not too late for you to get out of Santa Somabra, you know. There's nothing here you wouldn't find anywhere else except for the Somabra Slayer - hopelessness and catchy names, that's all this town is good for.""No, it is too late," she said, her voice soured as she thought of her predicament. She grabbed the bottle and poured herself a double. So what if it was hard to drink; she felt like she deserved it. God knows she needed it. "I'm sorry about your mother," she added with a tinge of guilt. When was the last time the girl had talked to her parents? They weren't the best folks, but they certainly tried to be. She hadn't even returned a single text message to them in months, let alone give them an actual phone call. Valorie sighed and took a sip of her drink. Still gross.
"But I think you're wrong," she said, trying to sound hopeful. "The whole world's fucked up, not just this city. I would've turned out to be a fuck up anywhere I went. At least here I can find
it, whatever the hell it is anyway." She tucked her legs under her, her feet brushing against Cain's thigh. She gave him a sideways glance and a half-smile. "Besides, you're here, old man. You didn't forget your promise, did you?"
"No, I didn't. And that should tell you one thing: You are not a fuck-up", he said a little more forcefully than he would have if he was sober.
"I wouldn't have offered a talentless junkie to become my apprentice. I am not a good person, Valorie. I have done things that should keep me up at night... but most of them don't."As if to drown the images these words had evoked, Cain raised his glass once more, drowning them in hard liquor. This gulp, however, wasn't savored in any way; he drank it with thirst, with the need of bad habit, only one or two steps short of full-blown addiction.
"I was kinda like you when I was your age: Angry at pretty much everything for no particular reason, tired of people avoiding me and every semblance of success crumbling under my touch, feeling oppressed by the environment I grew up in, but most of all, I was disappointed in myself for not being able to do something about it. I left the city, drifted from place to place and let myself spiral out of control in a way that makes what you got involved in yesterday look like something to write home about."His eyes were glued to her frame, an intensity in his voice that spoke of the kind of memories you'd rather forget. His empty hand sat right next to her knee, brushing against it as if looking for something to hold on to.
"It got bad, really bad, and I crossed a lot of thresholds I shouldn't have. If my mother hadn't died when she did, I would have either ended up dead in a ditch, in a hail of bullets, with a needle in my arm or burning myself up in some failed demonic ritual. And if I can, I'll make sure you never do anything worse than drugs, so you don't become a fuck-up like me."Valorie shifted uncomfortably, staring into her drink as Cain talked to her. When she was older would she one day find herself confiding in someone much younger with the hope to...what, exactly? Redeem herself for her past transgressions? She frowned. The thought that someone who was little more than a stranger seemed to be convinced that he knew and understood everything about her irked her. She had come over here to learn, to study, to better herself as a necromancer—and perhaps she had found the man a little charming, as well. Now she found herself annoyed with Cain and, perhaps even more so, angered at herself for being annoyed with the man. Yet she refused to let herself become some morality pet, some little Rat locked up in a cage because he was afraid she'd be eaten by a cat. She sipped her drink to cover up her silence.
"How kind of you," she said in a deadpan voice. Her eyes drifted to the book in her bag. She doubted tonight would turn into a study session at this point; Cain seemed too moody (or perhaps less sober than he appeared) to answer any questions. She had really been curious to see if he could confirm some of her ideas on using reversed runes to turn the wards into jinxes or adding various components to a wax seal would give certain charms a stronger seal. Valorie would be lying if she said she wasn't disappointed, but she'd also be lying if she said her disappointment didn't fill her with guilt. Cain had saved her after all; the least she could do was lend a sympathetic ear and a few kind words. She drained her drink and poured herself another one.
"What I mean is, well, look, man, I think I get what you're trying to say, but...that stuff doesn't really work on me, you know?" she said, feeling the heat from the liquor in her face. Grabbing an ashtray from the table and setting it in the gap between the two, she stuck two cigarettes in her mouth and lit them before handing one to Cain. "I mean, like, I'm sure you've seen a movie before, right? I think they were called talkies in your day," she said, smirking. "Because this is the part where I'm supposed to be a shitty young adult and yell how I'm nothing like you, or how you don't know me, or how you can't control me and then storm out, and to be honest I kind of want to do those things. Really, I don't feel good about it, but I do. This heavy shit, I'm...I'm just not mature enough yet for it, I guess."
Valorie took a big drag and huffed out a cloud of smoke.
"But I know I'm immature, and I'm not going to do anything like that," she said, giving Francis an uncertain smile. "But if you start calling yourself a fuck up I might have to hit you. You're the one person in this town who has helped me out without really asking for much of anything in return. And who gives a shit if you're not a good person? At least you're trying to do good things," she said. "That's gotta be worth something, right?"
Cain gave her a tired smile but didn't answer. It was okay, really. He didn't think she'd be remorseful or break into tears or grow up in an instant. That wasn't how youth worked. Talking never changed you that much, only something that hit you really hard could do that.
Why had he spoken so freely to her then? Because he was selfish. He felt reminded of a fight with one of the many girlfriends he had had in his lifetime, where the pressure on his head and weight on his chest were so great, where thoughts kept repeating in his head so unbearably that he had to get out. Of course you always regret them once the other heard them but it was still a relief to not carry them around with you anymore. That's how Francis felt right now. This evening had put him into turmoil over losing a bit more of himself, but it wasn't just this evening - it was the culmination of the past weeks and years even. Vigilance was a friend but there were things he didn't want her to see in him. God only knew why he decided to confide in Valorie, of all people. Well, not just God. Cain knew. He saw himself in her and that made him stupid. That and an attraction to her that didn't exactly seem to contribute to a good learning environment.
The silence became awkward very quickly as both nursed on their cigarettes and Cain emptied his glass. At that rate, the bottle was not long for this world.
"Being like me is not entirely bad", he finally spoke with a wry smile.
"It means you'll become a former cop and badass wizard one day, when movies are called 'talkies' again.""Better than being like me," she muttered, replacing her thoughts and words with a deep, heavy drink. She couldn't help but hear Kennedy's threat ringing in her ears. She had been trying to ignore thinking about it all day, but then Cain had to implant her with the horrific thought that she would one day be sharing the same occupation as that slime ball. Of course, Valorie knew that would never happen. She might have been a dirty, rotten snitch, but she still had some self-respect. She took another drink in hopes of finding refuge in its warmth, but thoughts of Kennedy had ruined it. She set the glass down on the table, a heavy pout on her lips as her face sunk into her hands.
"Not to bring down this chipper mood, but I, Kennedy's, shit, man, I think he's going to..." she said, unable to finish her sentence before a new idea formed and shut her up. It was a disgusting, horrible thing to think, but she thought of it anyway. Perhaps the drink had reacted with her negative mood (or the study drugs) and opened the gate for the dark parts of her brain to creep out. Whatever the reason, she couldn't let the thought go. It was a possible solution to her police problem, and if it wouldn't really help her in the end at least she would have the gratification of knowing that she had gotten the last laugh when it came to dealing with Kennedy. She glanced deviously towards Cain. It was wrong, she knew it was wrong, but she could use him.
No, call it like it is: manipulate him, she thought, looking away from the man. She had caught his sideways glances. He had said he would do whatever he could to make sure she did nothing terrible. He seemed to have a checkered and violent past. She believed she could convince him to do it.
"Francis, I know you and Kennedy are associates or whatever, but if I—" Or she could just completely ruin whatever it was that the two had between them. "—never mind. I don't want to think about that asshole, it's just—" Maybe she could just hint at it; make it seem like it was his idea. "—I sometimes can't help myself but think how better my life would be if Officer Dick wasn't in it.
He could have seen that glance, should have seen it, should have realized that she was trying to implant an idea in his head, but he didn't. The alcohol made Francis blind and his strange attraction to her added stupid to the mix. And yet she didn't succeed in the way she hoped she would.
Her words and what she was clearly hinting made Cain wonder: How much could he press this issue with Kennedy?
As dysfunctional as their private relationship had become, their work association was both stable and mutually benefitial, that much was clear. When it came to influential underworld contacts and pure deadliness, Richard Kennedy couldn't play in the same league as the mage; but likewise, Cain had none of the friends in high places Kennedy could boast, he would have far less insight into what the SSPD were up to or knew without him and he was a valuable source of income.
The truth of the matter was that Cain was convinced he could get Kennedy to back off and concede Valorie to him but he wasn't sure he could do so without damaging their 'partnership', if one could call it that. And Rich tended to do stupid things when he was feeling angry or betrayed, the kind of things that raised attention; last time he did something of the sort, he almost got himself caught with incriminating evidence, enough to put him in jail, and if Kennedy was ever faced with a trial, there was no doubt he would sell out everybody he could, including Cain.
No matter how he looked at it, there were only two ways to make sure that Kennedy didn't get himself in trouble: By making him scared or making him dead, and as strong as Cain was, he alone was not influential enough to scare Richard into submission; it was easy enough when they were face to face but through the phone, that was more difficult.
And that raised one final question: If all else failed, was he ready to kill somebody who was so valuable to him and who he had so much history with to help one girl out, to maybe not even save her but just make her life a little easier?
He didn't know. Now really didn't seem to be the time to think about it. But he would put her mind at ease, and if he had to go back on his word later... Well, it wouldn't be the first time.
"I will talk to Kennedy", he announced.
He lifted his hand from besides her knee to her shoulder and stroked it reassuringly. Then he grinned and added:
"And I'll make sure he knows not to mess with my girl."A dissonant voice rang through Valorie's head as Francis tried to reassure her. It sounded like her own voice, but in that surreal, almost unrecognizable way that your voice sometimes sounds when you play it back through a recording.
"You don't know me, old man,' said the voice.
"I am nobody's fucking girl." Although she could not remember ever saying those words, she knew that she had uttered them fairly recently. Perhaps it was just deja vu. Regardless, the words filled her with confidence. In her mind, her little ploy had worked without a hitch. Talk was clearly a euphemism used by the old man because he was afraid of harming the sensibilities of "his girl" with such violent words, or at least that was what she assumed. Through the growing haze of liquor, she could feel her face numbly forming into a devilish grin. She knew she should feel bad about what she was trying to do. Deep down inside, she truly believed she felt bad about what she was trying to do.
But she was going to do it anyway.
She looked down, biting her lip to prevent her toothy grin from giving her motives away, and then turned her eyes hungrily up at Cain. Perking up in her seat so that they were closer to eye level, she took his hand from her shoulder and clasped her fingers between his as she inched slowly forward. She didn't quite understand how she felt about the man, but she knew this didn't feel good. She was leaning on the couch on her good knee now, her free hand wrapping itself behind Cain's head. This is the part where she should've stopped, should've realized she was doing these things for the wrong reasons. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, see the wrinkles around his eyes. This was just some way to try to control him; this wasn't right. She stared into his eyes of what she assumed to be a sad, lonely old man, but all she could see was the reflection of a scared, stupid little girl. She hesitated for a second, and only a second.
"Can I tell you a secret, Francis?" she said, smirking, as she pulled her lips up to his ear to whisper. "I'm not a good person, either."
Before he could respond, she closed her eyes and kissed him. Now the only voice she could hear was Francis's echo: "But that's not how this city works. No matter what you do for a living, everybody's a whore: we all have to do things we hate ourselves for to stay afloat."
Thanks for the advice.
Neziul
Antlers
CassidyTheButch
ML
Simply Not Real
NoriWasHere
Blizz
Passable Writer
Evil Ghost Note