a stabbing pain
[Ground Rules:
1. Keep track of your own health and tempers.
2.
There is no post order, but please post once for each post I make
unless I specify otherwise. Do your best to post in 10 minutes or less.
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You are free to multi-task, as long as you can keep within the above
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your scenes out of respect for myself and the other players.
5.
There is a moderate to For Real chance of character death/maiming in
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out of here, I won't take it personally.
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any merits, flaws, or traits that I should be aware of (nightmares,
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8. Setup post forthcoming!]
a stabbing pain
[P.S.
9. If you have a question, post it in the AIM chat. If you don't get an answer in a couple of minutes, please PM me here once.
10.
If you think I forgot something, or you did on an earlier roll, say
something. Ask if I remembered your +1 to whatever. If a roll was
messed up, I can't promise we'll pause to work it out, but I'll try and
compensate for it going forward.]
a stabbing pain
It's
cold in Civic Center Park tonight. It's a sharp snap from the
75-and-above the city has been enjoying along with their rediscovered
Pumpkin Spice Lattes; there was snow in the foothills this morning.
Tomorrow it will be warm again, dry again, and shockingly so, but this
evening there's a cold, wet bite in the air. And in Civic Center Park,
there are people on benches and against trees who are not only trying to
stay hidden because trying to survive while homeless is criminal
activity, but they are also trying to sleep despite the looming fear of
winter. Tomorrow it will be warm, but tonight feels like a warning:
every week from now on is going to get harder. Colder. The nights are
getting longer, and so are the lines at the few shelters that -- for
some reason -- keep getting shut down or driven away. Prime real
estate, you know. If it weren't for the homeless.
There's been a
group out here lately, though. Sort of an unofficial soup line. They
pop up close to dusk with a folding table and hand out meals:
sandwiches, mostly, with a can of some greenish-yellow citrus-pineapple
energy drink. They aren't authorized, apparently, because they pop up
and then disperse as fast as they can, moving to other locations around
town where the homeless of Denver mill about. So far the police aren't
really doing anything about it: as many of them that enjoy exerting
power over the powerless, there are at least a few who really hate
enforcing the camping ban or chasing off people who are just trying to
feed some hungry souls. No one has considered that the unofficial,
unathorized nature of the pop-up bread lines means that the food might
not be good.
Almost no one.
It was some Cliath, some
fresh-cut Guardian of Cold Crescent, who kept bothering the Warder about
it. She did the Sorkin walk-and-talk with him all around the sept
offices one day, saying that she'd been noticing on her patrols fewer
homeless people sleeping in the parks and streets.
Fewer homeless people?
No. They're just not sleeping.
And
her buddy Freddie, he doesn't have a place to live and he hates
shelters because he says people steal his stuff, he really likes those
drinks, the pineapply ones. The cans are real big, and they're always
nice and cold and fizzy. Kinda sour but give you a great sugar rush.
Lots of caffeine. Lets you stay awake longer than coffee, so it's not
so hard. Lots of people he knows really like those drinks. And they
always have 'em. Even when they run out of sandwiches, people have
started staying in line for those drinks.
So? Caffeine's addictive.
Freddie
said that Jeannie, who's always at the bus stop? He said she never
cries anymore, and she used to just read old newspapers and rock on a
bench and cry all the time. But he said she's not sleeping anymore at all. She doesn't cry or read the papers. Still rocks back and forth though. But never sleeps.
Do you have ANYTHING else to go on?
No, but... I have a really weird feeling about this.
And
that's enough. They're all half spirit. Not just the Theurges. They
all feel some pull, some awareness that tells them that water is bad,
that meat is rotting, that den is haunted. So the Warder sent Kenzie
out to investigate further, starting in City Park. He didn't spread the
word. Some insomniac homeless people doesn't even sound supernatural,
but Kenzie grew up in Cherry Hills Village. Kenzie hasn't learned yet
how awful the world can be, how depression and anxiety and hunger and
hopelessness can steal your sleep. How misery, for many, is simply the
norm. It doesn't take the influence of the Wyrm for things to be bad.
But it helps.
--
It's
after dark now. Well after. Downtown, the police are mostly milling
around lower downtown -- the Lodo Letout, one of the most miserable
times and places to be anyone but one of the people stumbling out of a
closing bar or club. In Civic Center Park, it is relatively quiet. The
moon shines. The capitol gleams. The flowers are still in bloom,
because the chill has not destroyed them in a single day.
In the
broad stone ampitheater with its columns and stepped sides, four of
Denver's homeless stand gathered around something. There are no lights
bright enough to illuminate it, and they are all standing, staring down,
muttering to each other. One of them is a short, older woman with long
grey hair and a ski cap with a puff on top. She is crying, rocking
back and forth where she stands.
Matthew Murphy
It
doesn't get this cold this fast back in North Carolina but he's not the
only person wearing a ski cap and a winter-grade jacket outside
tonight. Doesn't matter if it's going to be dry and sunny and beautiful
tomorrow. Right now it feels like the ones going on about the Wyrm
winning aren't that far off.
He is cutting through Civic Center
Park well after dark in part because he's a fucking idiot and in part
because he has to get from the bar on 12th Avenue where his shift just
ended to the bus station on the other side of the park. It seemed like a
good idea at the time he set out.
And then he passes the amphitheater. Wouldn't pay any mind to the small crowd normally but he hears someone weeping.
Shit. He slows down but doesn't call out just yet. It's probably none of his business.
Erich Reinhardt
Well,
when the Sept gets concerned a call goes out. Most of these
assignments -- almost all of them, really -- are strictly volunteer.
Tonight, Erich volunteers.
Tonight, Erich -- wearing his sherpa
hoodie, fists stuffed into his pockets and shoulders slouched -- does
his best homeless-bum shuffle as he cozies up to that little clot of
people. Who knows what they're gathered around. Maybe a vat of that
pineapply stuff. Erich intends to find out, though.
a stabbing pain
Denver's
a weird place. There are people here who wear hoodies and flip-flops
all winter. There are people who bust out the parkas in late August
when it's not 90 anymore. But if you sleep outside as a matter of
course, you wear what you have most of the year round.
Matthew
isn't an idiot. Or maybe he is. We're not his dad. But people cut
through Civic Center Park at all hours. Safer for men, but not strictly
safe, period, even with a buddy. You never know, do you? The
broad open expanse of the ampitheather is often enough to dissuade some
kind of assault, but it's a decent walk from here to a more populated
area. You can hear people on the 16th street mall still. But they
can't hear you.
No one else is walking through tonight. So Matthew walks faster.
--
One more, then, ambling towards those people. Sees the shadows they cast. Sees --
Matthew Murphy
[perception + PU!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Erich Reinhardt
[per+pu!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Goldie Lennox
[Perception + Primal Urge]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Goldie Lennox
A
part of adjusting to new surroundings is getting to know them.
Studying them. Familiarizing. It was all a part of being a Ragabash.
Goldie wasn't a brute, she didn't have the raw strength and rage and
power that her Full Moon brethren had to contribute to battle. Goldie
had to make use of these surroundings to her advantage, and so she got
to know them.
This amphitheater seemed as good a place as any to
get to know. She was a slinky stalky thing, she knew that Matthew's
direct bus route existed through this area. If it was a place that he
was going to be circulating around, she had a responsibility (ugh, that
word still tasted awful in the back of her mouth) to make sure it was
safe.
So that's why Goldie could be found strolling through the
Civic Center Park. She was smoking what looked very much like a
cigarette, so the red cherry marked her place in the evening gloom.
Oh,
look at that. People. And one of them was a beacon of Stag-- this was
evident even from halfway across the park. But then, she had also
known Matthew long enough that she's more or less been sharing a house
with him long before they even came out to Denver. She'd pulled in a
lung full of air without smoke, to bellow to him, but paused when the
foursome was spied in a group, circled around something. Something she
wasn't so sure of. But it looked interesting, and one woman was in
tears.
So, of course, Goldie jammed her hands in the pockets of
the hoodie she was wearing, held her cigarette between her lips, and
strolled on over like she's been living in Civic Center with the lot of
them for the past three winters. Like it was her goddamn right to see
what's up.
a stabbing pain
[Goldie: She sees the people and she sees, sticking out between two of them on the ground, a pair of sneakers.]
a stabbing pain
It
is rarely a good thing when more than one of Gaia's chosen end up in
the same place at the same time without planning it. Especially when
the moon is just coming down from fullness. Especially when there's
blood on the air.
And make no mistake, little Ragabash: you haven't smelt it yet, but there is blood on the air.
--
The
three of them, two Fianna and a Shadow Lord, two Garou and a Kin, come
through the ampitheater in a triangle. It seems like fate that they
should be here like this, walking towards the center, walking towards a
strange center indeed. This park is not far from the shadow of the
sept. It is not out of the way.
The crying woman, who is very fat
and very white and the one with the puff-ball on her ski cap, gives a
great shudder and turns around. She is holding her hands to her
wobbling jaw, cold hands against inflamed skin. Her eyes see more than
the others. She sees Matthew. She gives a yelp.
"Cop! Cop! He's gonna -- we dinn't! We dinn't nothin'!"
She
rushes him. But she is heavy and unhealthy and her rush is a stomping
sort of thing, back and forth. Erich and Goldie see it clearly now: she
is covered in blood. It mats her hair and coats her clothes. There
are sneakers on the ground behind her, attached to feet, to legs. She's
heading straight for Matt.
The others stare. She is holding a can of that drink in her hand. So are they all.
Erich Reinhardt
It's not a vat of pineapply stuff.
It's blood.
It's Silver Fang blood.
It's Kenzie's blood.
--
HEY,
Erich wants to shout. He wants to, and he opens his mouth and he fills
his lungs, but what comes out is a roar. He hits the grounds on four
paws. One of these days, one of these days he'll remember to pull on that armor Luna gave him, but that day will not be today.
Today,
like every other day, Erich charges heedless and reckless and roaring.
He knocks someone sprawling. He sends someone flying. He goes
straight for that crying woman, that creature white and bloated as a
corpse, and as he nears his forepaws lift, his hindpaws shove off the
ground -- he launches into the air, all bulk and muscle and fur and
teeth.
Matthew Murphy
It doesn't take him long at
all to figure out what happened. As much as he uses his eyes his gut
tells him this is a murder scene he's just stumbled on and his gut is
telling him he needs to not go over there. He can retreat to a safe
distance and call the cops or call Goldie and tell her to get someone
with claws and training in spirit cleansing down here.
The horror
of the scene stops him though. He ought to just turn around right that
second but he hesitates. Hesitation gives the crying woman enough time
to notice him.
There isn't much to him. Even with the heavy jacket
and the steel-toed boots he's wearing he is built like a beanpole.
About all he's good for is turning and bolting. That doesn't mean he's
not a cop though. Plenty of people who weigh less than some elementary
school kids make decent cops.
"Whoa!" he says and takes his hands
out of his pockets. Shows her his palms even as he starts to back up.
"Whoa whoa whoa lady I'm not a cop, would you--"
And then there's a
roar. That roar startles him and he looks over to see where the fuck
it's coming from. By the time he looks over a huge black-furred monster
is charging straight at the woman charging straight at him.
Great.
Goldie Lennox
Goldie
Lennox was easily overlooked. Her Rage did not make a buffer against
the world around her. She wasn't drop-dead gorgeous. She wasn't
noticeably tall or incredibly short or very ugly or anything else that
would really set her apart. She was petite and lean and, tonight,
covered up by sneakers and jeans and a loose (but not oversized, not
baggy) brown hoodie with 'GAP' across the front in dayglow green
letters. She had the hood up, so her hair wasn't noticed. Really all
that stood out was the glow of her cigarette and how it reflected off
big, wide, watchful brown eyes.
She'd seen sneakers on the ground
initially. It took the woman's turning about, startled by the approach
of three others around her, for Golide to recognize that those shoes
were filled by a dead bloody body. When the woman turned, the ambient
city light made apparent the red blood on her as well.
A drink in
her hand-- but Goldie knew nothing about that, she wasn't patroling the
Sept or listening around the watering hole just yet-- and panic and
fight-or-flight existed on the overweight homeless lady like stink on...
well, an overweight homless lady, one supposes as well. Goldie watched
all of this, and her eyes widened when the woman picked Matt over the
three of them, accused him of being a cop, and charged.
Muscles
tensed, but before she could figure out how to react exactly a great
deep roar, bassy and rattling in her bone marrow, ripped through the
air, and so did a big black beast of a Werewolf soon after.
"Well," Goldie commented, "that escalated quickly...."
The
big terrifying black beast was far more full of War and further ahead
of her, closer to blocking the woman from Matt than she would be. So
she instead flicked her eyes to the other three to see what they would
do. All the while, she swelled and grew up to Glabro, and thankfully
her clothes knew how to grow along with her.
a stabbing pain
Four
homeless people getting through a cold night would be no match for a
Garou -- even a young Cliath who grew up in the richest neighborhood in
the state. And yet the young woman is on the ground, and she is bloody,
and she looks very much dead. Her head is to one side, eyes staring,
body motionless, limbs at odd angles, covered in huge injuries.
Erich sees a murder scene.
Matthew sees a murder scene.
Goldie sees a kinsman of her tribe on the verge of getting assaulted.
--
In
an eyeblink, the Shadow Lord is in hispo, launching across what little
distance remains between he and the group. And he hits that woman well
before she gets to Matt, easily: he slams her to the brick and concrete
ground, in a form whose density and weight far exceeds hers. Perhaps he
rips her to pieces. But if he doesn't:
She is crying again. She never really stopped. Her energy drink goes rolling away, splattering yellow-green fluid.
The other three stare. They sip their drinks.
"You cops?" the tall black man says. "You cops, you gotta tell us."
Goldie Lennox
Erich
knocked over the woman well before she had a chance to reach Matt. She
didn't offer much resistance, as it turned out she wasn't going to
burst through that doughy white skin as something else entirely and
start trying to tear them all apart. Not yet, anyways.
Goldie
smirked a satisfied little smirk that her plan to stand still and let
someone else handle the work had gone so well. She puffed the cigarette
one more time and switched her gaze to meet the eyes of the tall black
man who'd spoken up. Who'd asked if they were cops. She raised her
eyebrows at him, widened her eyes a little as well, then went "Huh," and
took a few steps toward him. Not threateningly, even if she was now
taller than average for a woman, broad, with strength built under that
hoodie in her chest and arms and shoulders, even though her thighs
pressed heavy steely muscle against denim with each step she took.
"No
we don't, that's a fucking myth. Cops aren't required to tell you
shit-- if that was the case, then 'undercover' wouldn't even be a thing
anymore."
She exhaled smoke up into the air, then leaned down and
picked up a foot so she could scrape the cigarette out on the bottom of
her shoe. As she did this, she jerked her head toward Erich.
"What, that didn't make you shit your britches? You feeling alright?"
Erich Reinhardt
Well,
that huge hispo-beast, who is by the way not jet-black, not even close,
but rather a timberwolf-grey dappled with black and white and shades of
brown: he doesn't rip her to pieces. YET. He slams the woman down, he
snarls in her face, he snaps his teeth and saliva flies in ropes. He
wheels around. Three onlookers: sipping their drinks. Totally fucking
blase.
So he wheels, one paw still on Miz BMI-40. He roars at them, too. And yes: for once, for once!, Erich begins to glow, to shine, to burn
with Luna's armor.
[WELL IF YOU'RE GONNA GIMME TIME TO ACTIVATE GIFTS, I'MA ROLL IT :D]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Matthew Murphy
The
kinsman is still holding up his hands when the dire wolf tackles the
crying woman. Temperature and humidity being what it is his breaths are
visible as they steam out of his mouth.
He isn't about to keel
over from fear-induced heart palpitations but he isn't a battle-hardened
badass either. When Goldie speaks he scowls and looks over at her.
"Oh, yeah, now's a real good time for a criminal code lesson, Lennox, thank you."
So
the two Fianna know each other. That's good information to have. He
starts again when the dire wolf roars and frowns when he starts to glow.
Now
that he's not in danger of getting torn to shreds he starts to consider
whether tiptoeing on out of here and letting the werewolves handle it
would be a good idea. He doesn't. He creeps around the unknown wolf and
starts to approach the amphitheater palms still out to show the people
inside he's not armed.
For all he knows they're Fomori and they're about to tear his fucking face off. That doesn't mean he can't try.
"We're not cops. Alright? But you look like you need some help."
a stabbing pain
The
group mulls what Goldie says over. One of them mutters that this is
just what a cop would say. He has blood across his mouth and throat.
Where he scratches his distended belly, he leaves flecks of drying blood
from under cracked fingernails.
The woman with ragged teeth keeps
shuddering. She keeps wincing, looking down against the light, holding
her can with both hands to slurp from it. Smacks her lips.
Now there is a glowing
direwolf in their midst, standing atop a buddy of theirs, and she cries
the same way she always does over the newspaper. Why should that shock
them? Why should the woman with the golden unibrow and the broad
shoulders seem odd to them? The tall man cracks his back, wincing,
arching as he tries and fails to roll his shoulders back; hurts too
much.
"NAH," yells the woman with the gapped teeth. "WE FINE."
Despite her obvious headache, she shouts everything. "WE FINE." She
lifts her can to take another sip, but finds it empty. Her shuddering
starts again. She reaches for the can held by the man with the
backache. "GIMME THAT."
"Getcher own," he snaps at her, so sharp
it may as well be a slap. She flails at the can. Then he does truly
slap her, backhands her across the face,
roars at her.
Spit flies from his mouth, green-tinged. She bares those huge teeth at
him, her eyes open, her pupils down to pinpoints. Her eyes have no
irises. She lunges at him, at the can he's holding. Her hat flies
off. The back of her skull is too... too wide. Like it's
splitting open.
Goldie Lennox
"Anytime,
Matty, you're welcome." 'Lennox', as she had been called, flashed a
wicked grin over to the Kinfolk who was moving around the
roaring-glowing-gray-not-black Hispo. In her Glabro form her teeth
seemed sharper, her canines filled her mouth more heavily than the rest
of her teeth, so that wicked grin looked particularly so.
So the
pair of unfamiliar Fianna knew each other. Perhaps they were siblings?
No, couldn't be-- Matthew Murphy was a relic of royalty among them, his
breeding was strong enough to worry about drawing in the wrong sort of
attention from a mile's radius. Goldie Lennox had no breeding to speak
of. It was impossible to guess her tribe just by looking and smelling.
Plus they didn't really look all that much alike anyways-- Matt's
features were more narrow, while Goldie's were wide and round.
Matt
had approached to let them know that they're not cops, to ask about the
kind of help that they might need. The trio that weren't pinned under
the glowing wolf monster just mulled about. Goldie noted the blood in
places on them-- in particular, she noticed the pushed out stomach on
the man when he scratched. Wondered if that had anything to do with the
body on the ground.
As she contemplated, a man and woman amongst
the three began to fight. The woman was shouting (Goldie's brow creased
some in reaction) for a can of drink (they all had them, didn't they?),
and the man physically slapped her to keep her away when she grabbed
for it.
Then the roaring. Then the massive teeth. A hat flies off and a woman's skull is actively splitting open.
Goldie
blinked once, twice, then pushed her hoodie back and said loudly to
Matthew: "This is your cue." To get back, of course. But he knew that
already. Goldie instead focused on pushing herself one step further in
her transformation-- from Glabro up to Crinos.
Matthew Murphy
He's
old enough and descended from a long enough line of purebred pillars of
the Nation that he knows his place is not in battle. Plenty of Kin do
find their place there but that is not his place.
Without a gun or
a knife or even a sharp stick nearby about all he can do is stay back
and out of harm's way. Maybe phone in a couple of favors after this is
all over. The two of them can pass into the Umbra and escape the scene
of the bloodshed without notice. The best thing he can do is not get any
blood on him. Look sufficiently freaked out by the time the cops roll
up.
This is his cue.
"Uh huh," he says. He sounds freaked
out but that's the adrenaline's fault. If he ends up having to run he's
going to need the adrenaline and his arms down at his sides. No point
holding his palms up anymore.
He takes several big steps back to put the dire wolf back between him and the crowd.
Erich Reinhardt
Yeah no. They not fine. They most certainly, absolutely, incontrovertibly not fine.
Erich
has seen enough. Really, were he a wiser wolf, he'd just step back and
let those crazies rip each other up over a few cans of crazy juice.
He's not a wiser wolf, though. He's just an Erich. And Erichs, faced
with this sort of wrongness, this sort of absolute abomination-ness,
know only one recourse.
He bares his teeth. He lunges. He tears into whoever the hell, whatever the hell, what the hell is that anyway, that's closest. Time to fight.
a stabbing pain
From
the woman's skull there are several things worming their way out.
Thick, heavy things. Tentacle things, yellow-gray ones, dripping a
gelatinous slime that stretches from one side of the splitting skull to
the other. The man she's facing, the man with the aching back, is
reaching behind himself as he roars at her, grabbing something under his
coat, like he's picking a wedgie.
He is not. He is jerking something out from his lower back, grunting, arching so hard his heels leave the ground, grabbing.
Blood
and some strange strange, clear fluid splashes out from under his coat
to the concrete. That's a whole other smell. Not one they're familiar
with. His hand leaves the hem of his coat and begins pulling something
out. It's long, and ridged, and made of link after link of hard bone.
Flesh clings to it in places. He is pulling his spine out. He is ripping his own spine out.
And his torso flops forward but somehow, impossibly -- inhumanly -- he
can still move. He lurches, like a gorilla made of empty burlap, and
moves his spine like a heavy whip across the ground. He charges his
enemy, who has six or seven vomit-colored tentacles protruding from her
skull. Each of them, where they might have sucking cups if they were
natural, have rows upon rows of tiny barbs.
The man with the belly just belches, staring absently. He nudges the body on the ground with his toe.
Jeannie,
the woman pinned by Erich, just sobs and wails and tries, vainly, to
reach her rolled-away can of energy drink. It's past her fingertips and
she can't get up. She keeps grunting: "Geroff. GerOFF," but he
won't, of course. She howls, shrieking, as her jaw
unhinges.
My, what big teeth you have, grandmother.
Razor-sharp
teeth, each several inches long, open up from behind her normal
human-looking ones. She looks more and more like a piranha, with her
bulging eyes, her enormous mouth that could, in a second more, engulf
most of Erich's head.
Erich Reinhardt
WELL THAT WAS UNEXPECTED.
Suddenly caught, suddenly swallowed-headed,
Erich backpedals -- claws digging long gouges into asphalt, concrete,
flesh, whatever -- and thrashes and bucks and kicks and finally, finally
just decides to open his jaws the best he can while inside someone's fucking face. He bites whatever the fuck he can reach. Because beggars can't be choosers. And swallowed Erich-wolves can't be picky.
Goldie Lennox
"Ho-lee fuckkk...."
Suddenly
this amphitheater was full of monsters. Monsters with unhinging jaws.
With big teeth and tentacles flailing out of their skulls. With their
upper half flopping useless because the core piece, the spine, was now
serving as a fucking whip and dragging across the ground.
With a big gray wolf monster that glowed like the moon's brightest light.
With
a big girl with too much muscle whose face was pushing out into a
muzzle, whose clothes were quickly replaced by a pelt of fur. Goldie
was horrified by what she saw-- she was a Cliath, she had seen some
fights, but she certainly hadn't seen any of this before. Her
expression was one of mingled disgust and horror before her eyebrows
vanished and a muzzle began to grow-- any ability to make human
expression was dashed then.
Soon enough she was a Crinos, a
lean-bodied and long-limbed thing with gold-red-brown fur and a pale
underbelly, with a particularly dark muzzle and hand-and-feet-paws.
With a short snout but plenty of teeth to fill it, and that's what
mattered, wasn't it?
Matthew was backing up, and Erich was digging
into the woman he already had pinned down. Goldie, in the meantime,
stood stiff and still with a snarl and watched and waited. Let the two
that were fighting each other continue to fight each other. Let them
tear each other apart so she'd have one less enemy to have to kill
herself.
Let them fight.
Matthew Murphy
Whatever
quality he carries with him day to day that lets him stand in the
presence of full moons furious enough to send most people across the
street doesn't do him much good when it comes to watching a grown man
start to pull something out of his back.
To his credit Matthew
doesn't vomit. He does stop his backpedaling though. If he's seen
anything more awful than that in his entire life it's been long enough
ago that his brain can't quite compute what it is he's seeing. Other
people's spines getting ripped out is one thing.
He doesn't even have a quip or the breath to take some god or bodily function's name in vain.
The
crunching sound from the dire wolf biting something inside the woman's
hell-huge mouth startles him out of his catatonia. And then he registers
the whipping tentacles. He takes another step away.
a stabbing pain
[INITS]
Erich Reinhardt
[an obscene +19]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Goldie Lennox
[Inits! Dex 4 + Wits 4 + ?]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Matthew Murphy
[a mighty +5!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
a stabbing pain
[all the baddies are Init + 5]
a stabbing pain
[Sciatica +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
a stabbing pain
[Headache +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
a stabbing pain
[Toothache +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )
a stabbing pain
[Bellyache +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
a stabbing pain
[Round One
Erich
Sciatica
Toothache
Goldie
Matthew
Bellyache
Headache]
a stabbing pain
[Headache
1a. Grab Sciatica with one of her tentacles
1b. Throw him around a little]
a stabbing pain
[Bellyache
Still convinced Matt is a cop.
1. Moves towards Matt, scratching his belly furiously and drinking whatever that goop is. Real pineapple flavor!]
Matthew Murphy
Fuck that.
action: run!
Goldie Lennox
[Well
that guy's probably a monster and he's going after Matt and Ma's going
to be REAL mad at me if he dies, so....Action: Claw Bellyacher!]
a stabbing pain
[Toothache
1. Crunch down on Erich's muzzle.]
a stabbing pain
[Sciatica
1a. Does not care about the Garou yet. Spinal whip at Headache!
1b. Again!]
Erich Reinhardt
[2R - also 1WP to resist pain.
1a. dig claws into whatever!
b. BITE WHATEVER!
R1. MOAR BITING.
R2. MOAR CLAWING.]
Erich Reinhardt
[attack!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 2
Erich Reinhardt
[BULLSHIT]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
a stabbing pain
[Toothache
Soak!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Erich Reinhardt
[come on, stop being pathetic!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) Re-rolls: 2
Erich Reinhardt
[:D]
Dice: 15 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 9 )
Erich Reinhardt
[I'M IN YOUR MOUF SHARDING YOUR PURPLZ +1dam]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
a stabbing pain
[um. soak?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
a stabbing pain
Toothache: x_x
a stabbing pain
[Sciatica
1a. Spinal whip!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
a stabbing pain
[Damage]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
a stabbing pain
[Headache
Soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
a stabbing pain
[Sciatica
1b. Again!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
a stabbing pain
[Damage]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
a stabbing pain
[Headache
Soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
a stabbing pain
Erich
is the quickest to react, but then, he almost has no choice. He was
the first one to flip out into a form other than human, lunging at
something because there's a guardian dead on the ground. Then
his head ended up inside the mouth of a human angler fish, and he dug
his claws into her body as deep as he could through all the fat he
encountered. Fluid -- not just blood, but something yellowish,
greenish, clear, tinged murky with blood -- rushed out of her over his
paws, but his weaponry found purchase and she howled.
He was
inside her mouth, half-blind, smelling something like citrus and
something like bile, when he bit at her blindly. First his teeth sank
into her engorged tongue. Then he pulled his head up, pulled her tongue
with it, but her tongue didn't detach from inside her mouth. Erich was
thrashing too quickly,
tearing her head somewhat in half. Tearing her head inside-out, almost.
Charming.
--
To
the side, near Kenzie's motionless form, the spineless man rushes at
the tentacle'd woman, roaring at her, thrashing at her with it. Whips
once and bone-barbs on his spine grab at her shoulder and yank. A
second whip of his own body part does nothing, glancing off her
blood-stiffed clothing. She just shrieks at him.
Matthew Murphy
IT'S GOLDIE TIME
claw!
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Matthew Murphy
damage: MATH!
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
a stabbing pain
[Bellyache
Soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )
a stabbing pain
[Matt runs see Matt you're clearly not an idiot we all believe in you.]
a stabbing pain
Shambling,
grunting, the man with the rounded, pregnancy-style belly sticking out
from under his shirt -- which features Frankenfruity -- runs after
Matt. Jogs. Bounces. Looks like he's going to throw up, actually. He
stops halfway because some of his energy drink has sloshed out of the
can, so he pauses to slurp it up before running after Matt again.
Then there's a mass of fur, a wall of terror, and it slashes claws the size of his whole hand across his body.
Four
clean gashes across that rotund belly. Bleeding, bleeding gashes.
Deep red blood, black even in moonlight, seeping out of him,
taking form,
a
darker version of the tentacles on the other woman's skull. He groans,
touching his own belly, the flows of blood taking shape under his
hands, worming around his fingers, reaching outward. He sobs: "Oh my
fuckin' god. Oh god. Oh my fuckin' god. Oh god,"
and, shaking in panic, upends as much of the rest of that drink as he can. To calm the nerves, see.
a stabbing pain
[Headache
1a. Grab!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
a stabbing pain
[Headache
1b. Throw!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
a stabbing pain
[Damage]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
a stabbing pain
[Sciatica
Soak!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
a stabbing pain
Over
to the side, the tentacled woman lashes out with one of them to grab
her former friend around the neck. Barbs sink into his skin, but not
deeply. She shakes him in the air, lifting him, but he's shockingly
heavy, and then she throws him aside. He doesn't go too far, smashing
to the ground, but it has little effect on a man whose bones are not
like a human's: he shambles to his feet again, bent at the middle,
hissing.
He has, after all, dropped his drink now. Not his spine,
though. He charges her again. She is scrambling to grab the can of
spinning, spilling EnerJam.
a stabbing pain
[RAGE ROUND ONE GO ERICH]
Erich Reinhardt
r1 bite!
Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Erich Reinhardt
[REALLY, DICE?]
Dice: 13 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 9 )
a stabbing pain
[Headache
Soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 3, 7) ( success x 1 )
Erich Reinhardt
[claw same target! or sciatica if dead.]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) Re-rolls: 1
Erich Reinhardt
[dam]
Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )
a stabbing pain
[Sciatica
Soak!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
a stabbing pain
[End of Round One:
Erich: Fine, and way too pleased with himself.
Sciatica: 7A X_X
Toothache: 10A X_X
Goldie: Fine and taking care of her own shit tyvm
Matt: BEING A SMART GODDAMNED KINFOLK
Bellyache: 3A, thanks again Goldie you're a pal
Headache: 9A X_X]
Goldie Lennox
Duty
was something that Goldie was still beginning to comprehend. Keeping a
Kinfolk alive was a simple enough task though, wasn't it? That was
straight forward, point A to point B. Maybe that's why this was a good
lesson to introduce the Ragabash to the concept of Responsibility.
That's
why it was easy to let the other two monsters grotesquely fight it out
over the fallen body of a dead girl (she didn't know that was a Garou, a
Guardian, someone that Erich had probably seen in the hall a few days
earlier). That's why it was easy to let the big fuck-off gray Wolf do
his job (and he was doing it so well!).
That's why it was easy to
spy that the man with the bloated gut was going after Matthew-- Matthew
without claws and fangs and bullets and blades. Goldie, now a physical
representation of the name she was given at birth, sprung forward claws
first. And of course she had to tear open that belly-- naturally, she
needed to see what was inside making all of that bulge and scratch and
rumble.
She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but to see what
looked like liquid blood shadow come pouring out and begin taking
shape-- tentacles, wrapping around fingers and twisting-grasping-feeling
into the air. Dark brown eyes that carried their way across all of her
forms observed the horror unfurl, but more the man's pleas of 'Oh god'
tore her attention from guts to face.
"You poor bastard." That's
what Erich would hear and comprehend if his own ears weren't full of the
sound of clashing teeth and crunching bone and tearing sinew. All that
anyone else heard was a wet rasping snarl. "I'll save you."
And she wound up for another blow.
a stabbing pain
[Round Two!
Erich
Goldie
Matt
Bellyache]
a stabbing pain
[Bellyache
1a. Something really gross
1b. Again
1c. Yup]
Matthew Murphy
Ignore
the fact that his blood would sing even to those who don't understand
the words. 'Matty' is not a big damned hero. He isn't even a little bit
of a hero. About the best he can do for the cause is stay alive so he
can maybe one day do something useful.
In the meantime that
bloat-bellied man comes towards him and after his eyes go wide he turns
around and sprints not completely away but at least as far as one of the
amphitheater's pillars. Puts him out of the line of fire a bit.
He wants puke on him even less than he wants blood on him.
Goldie Lennox
[ CALLED SHOT SPENDING WP -- Rip that throat out, yo ]
Erich Reinhardt
All
he hears is crunching bone. All he tastes is blood. Blood and that
awful, awful, cloying taste of whatever the hell it is they were all
drinking, fuck, what the fuck was it? In quick sequence he's dispatched one-two-three of them but: still that taste, still that stench, and now,
now the last.
Erich
wheels: paws bloody, jaw dripping. Ears flat, eyes glaring. Fur all
abristle. He wheels and he snarls and then he lunges, heedless,
nevermind whatever it was the bigbellied one intended to do. He knows
what he intends to do:
tear it to pieces.
[2R again!
1a,b,R1,R2: LOTS OF BITING CUZ CREATIVE.]
Erich Reinhardt
1a. CHOMP.
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 2
Erich Reinhardt
[dam]
Dice: 16 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 7 )
a stabbing pain
[Bellyache
Soak! HEH. HEH HEH HEH.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Erich Reinhardt
b!
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 1
Erich Reinhardt
[dam]
Dice: 14 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 8 )
a stabbing pain
Goldie
raises her arm to rip that poor soul open, end it for him. So far,
none of the others have risen. Not even Kenzie. Kenzie, who Erich
barely knew peripherally and Goldie never met, and only knows that some
of what she's been smelling tonight is the fading, cooling purity of a
Silver Fang.
Goldie is going to be compassionate. And like most
Garou, that compassion can only come through violence. That compassion
is always going to be tinged red with rage, stained red with blood.
The
man with the Frankenfruity t-shirt throws down his EnerJam now that its
empty, and the tentacles in his stomach protruding towards her take on a
stiffened, sharpened shape, as though they could become spikes, as
though they will shoot forward and --
Something else is birthed
through the torso of the last standing homeless man. It's a head, and a
face, but not a human face. Closer to a crinos face, but more
elongated, like a wolf's. Too large though. She doesn't recognize the
fur, because it is saturated --
saturated --
with
blood. Blood that is black and blood that still moves slightly, worming
over Erich's features even as the host dies. Blood that drips from
him, it runs so thick, so hot, trying to sting his eyeballs. Viscera
clings to his lower jaw as he rips his teeth into the man's back,
through his body, out through his chest.
What is left of the man's
form weakens, slumps. The tentacles that were becoming spikes and had
once been shadows just collapse in midair, as though instantly melted
back to blood. They drop, splashing on the ground, all over Goldie as
well. The wiggling droplets through Erich's fur stop moving of their
own accord, their host and the dark magic that was in him collapsing as
well, becoming nothing more than terrible, foul-smelling fluid.
The body slides off of Erich's muzzle to flop, wetly, between he and the Cliath.
The
ampitheater is suddenly very quiet, but for the sound of Matt's boots
hitting the concrete, thwacking rhythmically as he runs.
Goldie Lennox
Goldie
had raised one arm up to strike the man down and put him out of his
misery. There was no saving him that also coincided with keeping his
life-- his belly was open, and even if they did exercise the Bane that
had latched onto his soul his body would never survive the ordeal. She
was lining up a shot, gauging an angle and figuring how she should swing
from the shoulder and rotate her wrist to be able to simply snatch that
man's windpipe away from his throat.
Blood tentacles were
hardening and jutting outward, going from flailing and curling to
stiffening and aiming. Perhaps they would shoot forward to impale her?
She was torn between continuing the swing and making a leap back to
save her own belly when all of those concerns were taken away by a
splash of dark red blood across her short snout and very fuzzy chest.
Dark
eyes blinked in confusion as they tried to comprehend the massive wolf
head that took the place of the man's chest and ribcage. She met
Erich's eyes and for a moment her gaze burned. Her Rage was not
substantial, it was certainly nothing to match his own, but the moon was
still quite close to full and she had spent none of her Rage, had
burned none of it through battle while Erich was happily blowing through
his like a child through a package of Skittles. For a second the eye
contact was electric, wound tight and full of the potential for so much
more violence.
But then she simply huffed and the hand that had
been lifted to strike instead dropped down to wipe the blood from her
face as best she could and flick it toward the ground. She took a step
back, slipped down from Crinos to Glabro (she would still need muscles
to move bodies no doubt), and turned her head to and fro to hunt for
Matt.
The bellow that she called out across the park was deeper
and louder than any sound she'd made in Crinos, but then she hadn't been
roaring had she?
"MATTHEEEWWW!"
Matthew Murphy
Yeah
that's great Goldie yell his name super loud so everyone within earshot
can hear it that's going to do wonders for his anonymous bystander
case.
"Jesus Christ, I'm over here, stop fucking yelling!"
He
doesn't tell her to shut the fuck up in front of another Garou but
she's heard him yell at his older brother enough times to note it in his
tone.
Erich Reinhardt
And....
splat.
That's
the last noise ricocheting through Erich's ears. Before that: the wet
squelch of flesh, the snap of bone, the pop of organs, viscerae,
entrails, blood. But now, just splat. Splat, something lands on its
face. Used to be human. Not anymore.
Then just his breath heaving through his lungs.
Then just his pulse thundering in his ears.
Then -- then -- then, gradually the shouting, the beat of footsteps away, the rattlerattlerattle of a can of that crap rolling empty on the pavement.
A
low sound somewhere between growl and groan. Erich sinks down onto his
haunches, onto his belly. He crouches amidst the wreckage, the
devastation, the bodies. He noses ... what is that? Meat. He lays his
muzzles over the dead body of the Silver Fang. He whuffs, he gives his
tail one heavy thump. And for a while, he just
stays there.
Goldie Lennox
Matthew
hit her with that 'Shut the fuck up' tone, but it didn't hurt her
feelings any. His voice brought her eyes in his direction, and when she
saw that he was a good distance away and utterly untouched, she was
content. Whether he was walking back over to join them or not was, for
the moment, unimportant. She could understand why he may want to keep
his distance. Her own nose -- longer, sharper, more turned up at the
end to more closely resemble a snout-- wrinkled at its bridge just to
look at the mass of what was best described as a shell near her
sneakers. Blood had splashed them too, of course. She still stepped
back to avoid having them flooded with the forming pool of blood on the
ground.
The big gray wolf, perhaps still glowing, was over by the
fallen body. He'd laid down, nosed it, and then simply stayed put.
Goldie hesitated, but only momentarily, before walking over to the
massive wolf's side. She could have laid a hand on his flank without
bending, but instead she wiped the blood from the fingers of her right
hand on her pant leg and jammed her hands into her pockets.
"Hey."
That was a great introduction, Goldie. Spot on. You're doing people proud with this charisma.
"So,
uh, I don't know who that was. But I think we should probably get the
fuck out of here before people start showing up." A pause, a
consideration, and then she offered: "Should we bring her with?"
Clearly in question to the fallen girl's body, the cooling flesh that
once claimed True Royalty.
a stabbing pain
The
Guardian is on the ground. She's in homid, no older than 19. Her hair
was red -- dyed that way, almost orange -- with bright blonde
highlights. Pixie nose. Slender body.
Her hand is clutched
around a can of EnerJam. Her body is split open, throat to bowels, in
several places. Some of them look like giant cigarette burns. Even in
cold, rigid death, her hand clutches tight to that can.
Matthew Murphy
It
takes him a bit longer than the Garou to figure out that the fight is
over. That they've won. From where he was standing he could count the
number of Wretched and he could count the number of bodies but it's
different for an observer than it is for one in the midst of it. All he
could do to keep from adding another Gaian body to the pile was run the
hell away.
Once several seconds pass without the sound of teeth
tearing flesh or fluid splattering on concrete Matthew who has his back
to the pillar now that he's behind it leans out slow just enough that he
can see what's going on. Steam rolling out of his mouth lets Goldie
know he's still alive if the fact that he still had a voice did not do
it.
He reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and finds his
cellphone. It's a burner. He doesn't remove it yet but to touch it is a
reminder that it's there. He swings around the pillar and starts to walk
back towards the scene of the carnage. Walks slow like he's coming upon
it for the first time.
He doesn't speak. His bootsteps give him away.
Erich Reinhardt
Some time passes.
Then
Erich lifts his head. He looks around. Folds a forepaw under, sinks
onto the side of his haunches. Blood and ichor drips from his jaws. He
gives his head a loose, slow shake. Then he looks up at Goldie.
"Don't know. Can't tell if she drank that or if she was trying to keep someone else from drinking it."
Pause.
"Maybe we need to leave her here."
Goldie Lennox
"Then
we'll leave her," Goldie agreed with a nod. With the knowledge that
she wasn't going to be hauling any bodies tonight, Goldies' body shrank
down even further, significantly more, until she was in Homid again.
She was a petite girl to begin with, lean-limbed and less than
five-and-a-half feet tall, but she seemed all the smaller when standing
beside Erich's Hispo.
He wasn't sure if she'd been drinking the
drink or preventing the others from imbibing. With her hood down,
Goldie's wavy sand-colored hair was let loose and hanged down past her
shoulders to rest in front of them. Her face wasn't naturally freckled,
but speckles of blood made it seem so. She made a 'Hmmm' noise of
thought while looking at the body of the girl, at the can of EnerJam in
her hand, and deciding whether she'd been consuming the stuff or not.
Ultimately, she shrugged and concluded: "Well if she'd been drinking it
like these guys were, she probably wouldn't look as normal as she
does. Y'know...," she added with a cringe, because there was nothing
normal about how torn up she was. "Considering the circumstances."
Those
giant circular burn marks, though, they had Goldie feeling a little
weak and sick. She didn't get to learn what those
blood-shadow-tentacle-spikes did, but now she had an inkling to ponder.
Boots
thumped faint on the concrete, and Goldie glanced over her shoulder to
see that Matt was approaching. Usually she'd smile something only
slightly wicked at him and raise a hand to hail him, but this time she
simply pressed her lips together in a grim kind of expression toward the
Kinsman before looking back to the giant borderline-wallowing wolf.
"So,
I don't mean to tell you what to do or anything because Gaia knows that
isn't my place, but maybe you should... ah... become a little less
obvious." A hand left her pocket so she could jerk a thumb over her
shoulder, and she raised her eyebrows at Erich who was still a Hispo,
still on the ground, still not getting the fuck out of there. "And then
we can jam." Get it? EnerJam? "On out of here. Like, before sirens
and men with nightsticks come."
Matthew Murphy
If a
shred of life still lingered in the girl or if he knew she had been
Garou once before the band of Wretched had at her he would have raised a
voice of protest. But he doesn't know. He does not have psychic powers
and he cannot tell the corpse of a Garou from the corpse of a teenage
girl.
She's younger than his kid sister. That doesn't mean his
gaze doesn't linger on the body for several seconds before he blinks his
way back into the conversation.
Matt adjusts the way the ski cap
sits on his head and scowls at Goldie's pun. Too soon, girl. The scowl
lingers as he fishes out his phone.
"You need me to...?"
The
question aimed at Goldie and she knows what he means. He can run damage
control. Cops fucking love 911 calls and eyewitness statements from
concerned citizens who just happened to stumble on a load of bodies on
their way home from work.
Erich Reinhardt
Erich whuffs. He lies there a little longer.
Then, heavily, he pushes himself up. Shakes his fur out again. Turns; takes one two three steps away.
Turns
back. Puts a paw on Kenzie, which turns into a handpaw, which turns
into a grab: he picks the body up -- wounds and all, can and all -- and
slings it over his shoulder.
"Changed my mind," he explains unnecessarily. "Let's go. We'll Cleanse back at the Sept."
Goldie Lennox
"Uhhhh,"
is all that Goldie has to say at first. The man that she was trying to
convince to go back to being a man instead of being a giant wolf had
instead turned into a different kind of giant wolf and was now carrying
the corpse of what she could only assume to be The Victim over his
shoulder.
He wanted to lead them back to the Sept to be cleansed.
Goldie stared somewhat slack-jawed for a second, then snapped her teeth
and lips closed and looked back to Matthew again. He had his phone
out, was asking if he should, and the 'should' was apparent. Goldie
thought about it for a second, then looked around before shaking her
head.
"That's sweet of you, Murphy. You're a class A chum,
really. But I think we should follow this guy-- the cleansing sounds
more important than the witness call, don't you think?"
s
She smiled
sweetly, and the corners of her eyes even did a fine job of bunching up
with the expression, but of course she was still twisting in the
stomach and jittering in the nerves and boiling in the Rage, but she still put on that smile and even went so far as to hook an arm out to offer the Kinsman her elbow.
"Come on, or we're gonna miss our guide."
Matthew Murphy
He
opens his mouth to ask why the fuck he'd need to be there for the
cleansing but as he's drawing the breath to ask he looks at the Ragabash
and sees something in her face that makes him let the breath back out
without catching any words.
From a distance it sounds like a sigh.
"Whatever you say, Boss."
He puts the phone back in his pocket. If she thinks he's going to take her elbow she's drunk and needs to go home.
"I'm comin', I'm comin'."
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