Molly Toombs
A side-entrance pushed open, and Molly
Toombs and René Jacobs exited St. Luke's Hospital together. Molly had
stepped out first, and only barely bothered to keep the door pushed wide
enough open for the doctor behind her to pass through comfortably as
well. They left at about 2:00am, when the swing shift ended and gave
over to the next. The good doctor had stayed late, breaking hearts by
keeping himself an extra two hours to handle one particularly tough
patient that had come through the doors.
Molly wasn't talkative,
she just walked with her hands in the pockets of the black peacoat she
wore, chin and jaw nestled into a cream-colored infinity scarf for
warmth. The temperatures were in the mid-thirties at this point, and
while it could easily be much colder it was still chill. Her brow was
furrowed into a thoughtless frown, as she was no doubt remembering and
dwelling on the pair of nurses she'd spied watching openly, curiously,
when Jacobs had called after her to ask if she was leaving and then
caught up to her to walk with.
She swore he was doing it on purpose. He had to be.
As
they walked, Molly's sneakers quiet by default on the pavement that cut
across the parking lot, the nurse cast her eyes aimlessly through cars
and up roads. Looking anywhere but sullenly straight ahead, or up at
the doctor that walked alongside her. Looking all around was habit,
anyways. She was a woman who walked home alone most nights, after all.
René Jacobs
[dex + stealth: istván you are not sneaky what are you doing. +1 because celerity.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
René Jacobs
[perc + alert: notice something rené. -1 diff because auspex.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3: Don't make yourself look hapless!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
René Jacobs
Nurses
are strange creatures and of course Jacobs hasn't made anything of it.
It's almost as if he has no cognizance of what's going on around him
ever.
Ever since the night he told Molly to meet him at Next Door
Lounge the other nurses haven't been behaving any more hostile towards
her than they normally do. This isn't middle school. They're
professionals. The more mature among them have rationalized that he's
just looking out for her. Molly is brash and loud and has being an
asshole to him ever since he showed up. Maybe she reminds him of his
daughter or he's trying to build a rapport with her since she's the only
one here who's giving him any resistance.
The ones who don't have
hangups or moral scruples have started flirting with him even harder
than they were before. He didn't seem to notice that Stephanie kept
touching his arm and laughing whenever he said anything even remotely
amusing tonight. But Stephanie also said something that made him laugh
at one point.
So Molly isn't the only person the other nurses are
jealous of. It's just that the pendulum swings awful fast when he's
walking her out to the parking lot or giving her rides home because of
the creep who's been following people around the parking lot lately. And
as willing as she is to keep to her silence he is just as willing to
keep to his. He doesn't take pains to keep pace with her either. She
knows where he parks.
René Jacobs
Halfway
down the sidewalk a shadow joins the other shadows and loses the shape
of a man. Molly notices the shadow but cannot make out any details.
René though sighs. Before she can say anything:
"That's my..." And if she's not looking at him she won't make anything of his tone. "... associate. Over there. Keep walking."
Vex
[This is none of y'alls business.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( fail )
Molly Toombs
There
are a handful of things that Molly is good at, and another and equal
hand of things at which she is not. For instance, while she is good at
practicing the medicine that she's learned, she is terrible at parallel
parking. She hasn't driven a car in a few years, as a matter of fact.
Some other things she's terrible at include (but are not necessarily
limited to): building birdhouses, unclogging toilets, photography, and
picking locks.
In return, though, there were two things that she
was specifically good at that were a blessing to help her navigate and
survive this world of shadows and supernatural mists that she descended
further into as the weeks rolled on. She was very good at picking up on
and retaining knowledge (smart girl), and very little passed by without
her noticing.
Up ahead, Molly noticed as a man's shadow blended
in with others up ahead, but no man came around the corner on the
sidewalk to follow up. Whoever it was she'd seen, he was skulking about
now. Before Molly had much of a chance to narrow her eyes suspiciously
or open her mouth to mention what she'd noticed, the man that she
walked with sighed and offered an explanation.
Molly's eyebrows
raised, but she didn't look immediately scared or worried. Rather, she
peered suspiciously up at the side of René's face. "What makes you so
sure that's who it is?"
And then, to follow up (because of course
she realized only after asking the question that he may have been able
to see something from his taller vantage point that she hadn't seen),
she asked: "What's he doing here?"
But she did keep walking-- the woman had no motivation not to.
Vex
[You don't see me.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Vex
[Not breaking into a car.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception + Alertness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
René Jacobs
[ISTVAN WHY THE FUCK DON'T YOU HAVE ANY DOTS IN ALERTNESS -1 diff because auspex]
Dice: 3 d10 TN5 (7, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Vex
There
is a boring, sedate car, what some afficionados might call a piece of
shit, or in the French, merde, and nobody is lurking at THAT car.
However there is a car next to it which is a sweet piece of mechanical
ass it looks like it's come straight from some man's wet dream about
cars as women as better than women as pretty much better than men pretty
much better than anything this car is fucking gorgeous an F-type Jaguar
Coupé and it is let me tell you a piece of wonder.
And next to
that car, which belongs to one of the surgeons, there is a young man
with dark hair, busily plying the trade of getting the fuck into a
beautiful car like that and taking it away to a better world. István
notices him. Molly notices him, too. Maybe just sees the flicker of a
shadow, or hears an under-the-breath sort of air-only humming, because
while the carjacker is trying to be quiet he's not that quiet. His
actual appearance is hidden by the fact that he's kneeling between cars
and keeping his head down.
Thanks, ugly boring dull car, for providing this cover.
René Jacobs
[jesus christ rené pay attention. the auspex/distraction modifiers cancel out.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
René Jacobs
[istván sneak-up-on-you mode: ENGAGED. i'm gonna say he dropped a blood point into his dex pool because YOLO.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Vex
[?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
René Jacobs
What makes him so sure that shadow over there is his associate, and what's he doing here.
Neither
of those questions are particularly easy to answer but Molly is looking
right at the taller physician. It's dark and his features are dark and
he wears a beard that offers up camouflage for all but the most obvious
of expressions and everywhere but his eyes. Eyes have given away better
liars than René before. He's a passable liar but he is not an actor.
The
way he looks at the shadow is a deeper stronger more permanent version
of the way the women in the emergency department look at him.
When he answers her his tone is as dark as the rest of him.
"What do you think he's doing?"
Since she knows so much about vampires.
The
shadow decides it does not want to hide behind a dead streetlamp
anymore. It makes an amateur attempt at sneaking from the streetlamp to
the shadows cast by the empty parking lot attendant booth. Its shoes
make no sound but creatures with a fine-honed sense of self-preservation
can tell when they're being hunted. He's not as sneaky as Lux thinks he
is.
Molly Toombs
Astute a creature as she was,
the way that René was looking forward, to where they'd both seen someone
lurking and waiting, did not go unnoticed by Molly. She didn't scowl
at him in disgust, though, or call him out on it. Rather, the cast to
the frown that she seemed to always wear in one fashion or another
around the doctor shifted, looking thoughtful and maybe even a touch
sympathetic.
She was remembering a conversation in the passenger
seat of a car, with a man who was significantly older than he appeared
to be, but still boasted a pulse.
They call this state
ghouldom. When a living human drinks enough of a vampires blood to halt
the aging processes, to give them powers and a few other things
besides.... Problem is, it affects your mind too. Especially if...say,
you drink to much of one vampires blood. It makes you want them, makes
you trust them...makes you love them.
Her attention was
snapped away when the doctor glanced down and asked her what she thought
he was doing. She didn't want to be caught staring up at him, anyways,
so she resumed her cautious glance about. This time it yielded another
skulker about, and this caused her to slow her steady pace down some.
A
man, she presumed, or perhaps a woman-- leaned down, cloaked in the
shadows of dark between the rows of parked cars. It was fiddling with
the door handle and lock. Soon after, she noticed the figure of Dr.
Jacobs's 'associate' slipping from one spot to the next. She saw where
he was headed, and frowned and slowed further-- distracted, watching,
and worried about not being able to see what was going to happen next.
It was important to know if she should worry about running or not.
Vex
The
movement of shadows suggestion of a reflection (isn't that
re-assuring?) ceases. The breathy thumming, that ceases too. Between the
cars, the shadowy shape of shadows who is naught but a shape a
carjacker bad news but oh what kind of bad news isn't that the question
pivots on the heels of his falling-apart sneakers and splays a hand on
the cold cold ground and his head comes up, his eyes narrow.
He
ducks beneath the car. The ugly piece of shit car; pops up on the other
side of it, putting space between himself and the other Thing That
Sneaks, although this leaves him closer or with easier access to a pair
of approaching St. Luke's employees, and look how spider-crawl slow
hand-over-hand he creeps up over the glass and peers toward
whatever-the-hell is coming his way.
And look, René. This guy
attacked you from behind, but you remember, maybe. You got away because
you fought (LOL, no, that's not how it works; but you did fight, good
job), and there is definitely something familiar about that pointed
Latinate face, something familiar about the jittery wiry energy leashed
just barely to muscles and see look he is twitching a little if you
(Molly, you are observant) are observing, fine tremors here and there
and here and there and
glare. Glare at István. Glare, glare, glare.
René Jacobs
[ah, what the hell. perc + med for dr. jacobs]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Medicine 3: Why not?]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Vex
René and Molly are both professionals, after all. And given this moment of leisure (heightened paranoia, sharpness, care), when Vex [let's call a rose a rose]
slips underneath that piece of boring shit car and presents a profile
while glaring at that Something Else, they can tell that those
shiver-shakes aren't just to do with addiction (aren't just, aren't just),
that there's something wrong with the man (who is not a man), that he
unconsciously hunches over a little in a way that'd indicate something
wrong with his abdomen, that the something wrong might be (might be)
Mental, is indicative at least of painpainpain.
René Jacobs
Dr.
Jacobs is unlike the creature who is responsible for enthralling him in
more ways than can fit into a paragraph what with Molly knowing
absolutely nothing about the creature beyond the fact that he has
managed to get by without ever having to truly become one with the
night. That when his reflection or his scuffing soles or just the
paranoia present in the carjacker catching his attention he doesn't
think the jig is up. That he's blown whatever chance he had.
Neither
of them can tell what the shadow is thinking even when he is no longer
truly a shadow. Or if Jacobs can he keeps it to himself.
One of
the ways that ghouls are unlike vampires is in their vital signs. Their
cardiopulmonary systems continuing to function. Their hypothalamuses and
their pituitary and adrenal glands continuing to function.
The
creature between the cars must have been the one that grabbed Jacobs
last weekend. It doesn't matter if he's been part of all this for a
month or a century it seems. Molly can hear him draw a deep slow breath
like to calm himself and can feel the slowing and altering of his
course. It's not terribly comforting that the creature is outside his
car. Even if he's trying to bust into the one next to it and not his.
Molly recognizes his car though.
"Come on," he says.
Glaring
as he is there is no point in the creature hiding from Vex anymore.
Jacobs' domitor steps out from behind the attendant's hut and reveals
himself. He clicks his tongue in mocking sympathy when he gets a look at
the state his new friend is in.
Molly Toombs
Where
the two medical professionals wound up stopped, they were placed about
seven feet away from one another or so. Molly had slowed down, and the
doctor had continued forward to get nearer to his car for a few moments
longer. For this, Jacobs was closer to this Vex figure, the man with
Latin heritage that was curled and hunched around his stomach as though
it was paining him-- who was shaking with some kind of addictive need.
Molly's
eyes were stuck on this fellow at first, wide and cautious. He was up
against the car that she and the doctor were supposed to be getting in.
Blocking their safe, sheltered, easy escape. René told her to 'come
on', but Molly saw how he was staring at the junkie(?)and found herself
worried. Then the skulking figure, a man clucking his tongue
scoldingly, sympathetically, as though he were in perfect control of the
situation had stepped forward.
The swing-shift nurse was clever
and smart, she could conclude that the man against the car was worth
worrying about in ways beyond despiration and a stolen steak knife. The
doctor told her to 'Come on', but Molly was already starting to walk
backwards, back along the sidewalk toward the hospital once more. She
didn't move fast, not wanting sharp movements to draw sudden attention
to herself, and certainly wasn't giving this trembling, shaking,
pain-addled man her back.
Vex
[Dominate 1, which isn't going to work anyway but Vex is still trying it.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6) ( success x 2 )
René Jacobs
[perc + aware: that's cute]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )
Vex
[Oh, a strength roll for flavor.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Vex
It'd
be a lie to assume that Vex doesn't know there are Others Around
because he does because they weren't trying to be quiet they usually
don't try to be quiet they come in groups and that's why it's easy to
ignore the groups or easy to find the solitaries and to and to and to
well that's not important is it. Is it? It is not. Vex runs the tip of
his tongue over his teeth and jerks a quick look over toward René and
Molly; his eyes are wide, his eyeballs limned in gunk that he should
blink away, could blink away, doesn't blink away, it'd be a pathetic
look if it weren't so - there's something wrong. See?
The eyes are
the only steady thing about Vex, who goes back to glaring, glaring,
glaring at René's associate, manipulates his natural ability to
intimidate, shakes as he does so, shakes harder, fingers biting into the
piece of shit car, beginning to dent, and he says in a scratchy voice, "Fuck off. Run."
And though there's Power in the voice, it would never've touched the Tremere anyway.
René Jacobs
Jacobs
grabs Molly by the arm and makes a noise sharp between his teeth to
keep her from heading back towards the hospital. They're leaving. High
Street with its patrolling cops and its out-after-last-call bar-goers
and its bright lights and no place for someone to drag them or corner
them or sneak up on them is right there. If they go back inside and
something goes wrong then it won't take a desperate sick-looking
creature long to track them down.
That could be his thinking. Or
he could just be thinking that he wants to get as far away from the
person who nearly killed him as he possibly can.
He can't tell
what exactly just happened but maybe later he'll sort it. When he's not
trying to steer Molly towards escape rather than potential entrapment
he'll make something of the fact that the monster who grabbed him tried
to intimidate his domitor.
For the time that she lays eyes on him
Molly can form and keep an impression: tall, well-dressed, well-groomed,
young at the time of his death. 30, maybe 35. He's about the same
height and build as Jacobs but his hair is dark blond. Hard to tell his
eye color from this distance in this light. His skin might have had a
peasant's tan in life but it's pale and bloodless now.
When he
laughs at the suffering creature it's a hollow heartless sound but his
accent makes it ring. Bells don't have hearts. Bells are hollow. Bells
are pleasing to the ear. His laugh is not a bell but it isn't an awful
sound either. It's just not strictly human.
"That was good," he
says. His accent is more eastern than Jacobs' is. German or Polish or
Hungarian. Depends on how good Molly is at identifying European
dialects. People think Jacobs is French, for fuck's sake. He's not
French. He's Belgian. "Want to try again, or would you rather stop with
this foolishness?"
Vex
[Okay, I will try again. Presence 2.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
The
plan had been to vanish into a building that was full of lights and
people and monitors and cameras-- where she knew there were often police
officers able to be found throughout the building at any given point.
She would have hoped that the shelter of a crowd and ever-seeing eyes
would have kept them safe. But Dr. Jacobs grabbed on to her arm and
made a sharp sound at her.
Molly cut her eyes up to the man and
gave him a look as sharp as the noise he'd made at her. But her eyes
are wide and worried, and she doesn't pull at his grasp or open her
mouth to yell at him.
He wanted to take to the streets? That was fine by her.
The
two that by now Molly presumed (accurately) to be among the Undead were
having a back-and-forth at each other verbally, growling and
challenging and scoffing-laughing-mocking. Molly glanced to them
cautiously, but did not watch as an enthralled person might. She wasn't
going to stick around to see how this turned out. She could figure
that out later.
For now, she started a brisk walk toward the outer
edge of the parking lot, toward the street, and if Rene wasn't in the
same set of mind to move quickly then she would be pulling on his arm,
either to free herself from his grasp or drag him along with.
Vex
Vex
tightens his jaw. There's a popping sound, like bone: like a
dislocation just occurred. He wheels back from the car, and this.
This
is terrifying. This is striking, what Vex does, and it drags at István,
although it does not quite go deep enough, go far enough, to send him
running, fleeing, clawing through walls and cars and streetlamps and
flesh and whatever's in the way to get away. This is terrifying, this:
This
is Vex skimming his lips back from his teeth; this is War, in his eyes,
this is a Nightmare, in his eyes, which gleam with eldritch fury, that
hisssssing sound.
Housecats hissing can make a grown man step back and decide not to get involved.
Even
a junkie-shaking-something's-wrong-something's-wrong guy like Vex,
Presence licking through his shape, transforming it: is enough to make
an Elder pause.
"GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY."
René Jacobs
[perc + aware]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
René Jacobs
[seriously istván why the fuck don't you have any alertness]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4) ( fail )
René Jacobs
Intact
sense of self-preservation and a drive to protect the nurse who hates
his guts or not: René does not want to leave the blond creature.
It's
nothing so overt as his heels grinding into the sidewalk. He needs to
get away from the leech that nearly killed him. It's a muscle memory of
fear as much as anything else. He can think back over the course of his
life and recall many instances where he ought to have died. The most
recent instance would have been in a fucking parking garage. Nobody
deserves to die in a parking garage.
And yet Molly saw something
in his eyes that nobody else has seen from him before. In the glare of
the fluorescent lights he's intense, sure, but that's the passion he has
for the work that they do. The intelligence he has and the spine and
the fire that drives men like him through life. Everyone has seen that.
That's why so many of the women who work in their department have
developed schoolgirl crushes on him.
To say he would be devastated if anything happened to the creature they're leaving behind is an understatement.
After
wheeling Molly around he does hesitate. But it's a fleeting hesitation.
His hand doesn't leave Molly's arm. He glances back only once and then
he's hustling down the sidewalk at a pace to match her quick clip.
Molly Toombs
René's
holding on to her forearm while they hurry away. The brisk walk soon
turns to an outright jog that has Molly's plump self half-bouncing her
way toward the cement stairs that run up an embankment, three small
flights of them, up the side of the hill to meet the street above. She
didn't like his just hanging on to her arm, so she twisted it and
instead grabbed on to his hand. It was an easier, more even way to pull
and keep track of one another. More natural, really, for the human to
want to do.
She felt René dragging, though. The nearer they got
to the stairs, the less focused on moving forward he seemed to be. She
noticed his distraction, that his eyes refused to loose track of the
situation happening behind them. So as they came upon the stairs, with
their thin rust-crusted iron railings that climbed up the steep hill to
the street, Molly spoke quiet and urgently to him, half-hissing her
impatience.
"Jacobs, come on. They're crazy fast." She's been told, at least. "If that sick one gets it in his head to come get his fix, we're fucked."
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
René Jacobs
[perc + alert for the road]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 1, 2, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Vex
Molly
and René at the stairs. They can hear muted conversation behind them,
across the sprawl of parking lot; the echoes of Vex yelling, yelling,
yelling has been swallowed up by asphalt and by winter. They don't hear
any screams. They don't hear the sound of glass shattering. They don't
hear a fight.
They do notice somebody that they are perhaps
familiar with in passing, or - and why not - perhaps they've had a
couple full conversations with her. Dr. Rameena Guirguis, one of St.
Luke's resident general surgeons, trauma thank you, someone in her
thirties, late thirties perhaps, brown skin with a hawk's nose and
arching eyebrows, a demure-mouthed cheschire smile whenever she smiles
which is never when she's actually on the clock, though she's all right
otherwise, though she really really likes her car. One kid, an eleven
year old boy. Divorced for ages, but her ex died recently and gossip has
it she's getting the kid again soon.
She has a cellphone to her
ear but the air of someone who's waiting for somebody to pick up, not
somebody who's actually talking to anybody yet. 2 am isn't the best time
to make a call, but it was pre-arranged, right? She looks tired because
that's what happens after a long shift but she smiles faintly at Molly
and René, nodding, as she goes down the stairs, clearly intent on
heading to her car and going home.
You know, the car that's currently in the middle of two vampires who may be about to fight.
René Jacobs
He doesn't want to leave.
Even
though the ghoul--let's call a spade a fucking spade here--lets Molly
jerk her arm out of his grasp to replace it with her hand and he does
hold onto her hand like he isn't so far gone he can't remember simple
things like this once they get to the stairs the fact that they're about
to disappear from sight comes upon him.
That's what he was trying
to have happen in the first place. They need to get the hell out of
here. They're not safe here. He trusts István with his back but now he
stops at the bottom step to look back again. When he opens his mouth
it's to protest but he's smarter than that. Whatever he could possibly
say to Molly would only further convince her that he's too entangled in
this shit to make her life anything more than a nightmare.
So he doesn't say anything. He looks stricken for a moment and he doesn't move right away but he doesn't try to reason with her.
And then Dr. Guirguis comes down the stairs.
Putain de merde, Jacobs does not nor have to say. Molly can feel it in the way his hand jerks and immediately yanks out of hers.
"Doctor
Guirguis!" he says but not in a panic. His voice is light. This is one
of the few times Molly has probably ever seen him smile. He doesn't do
anything as blatantly suspicious as block the way down. That's an
amateur stalling tactic. "Hi, hello, I have a question for you, do you
have a moment? A small moment. I know it's late."
René Jacobs
[cha + subt i can be charming. right? right?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Vex
[Squint.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
István
[Squint.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Vex
[Stealthstealthignorethis.]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 6 )
Molly Toombs
There's
a suspended moment of tension, where Dr. Jacobs looks at Molly but
doesn't quite have words to say to explain his hesitation. Like he may
tell her to go on without him, but doesn't know how to justify that just
yet. She's staring at him bewildered, looking increasingly like she's
overwhelmed by his insistance on making stupid decisions (like hanging
back around this atom bomb potential for violence and death, for
vampires would be hungry after fighting one another, or use them like
hostages, or, or, or).
Then the trauma surgeon Dr. Guirguis comes
walking forward, and while Molly doesn't recognize that she's headed for
a car between where the vampires were left Dr. Jacobs sure does. His
hand yanks quickly from hers, and Molly blinks once, startled, then
quickly tucks her hands into her coat pockets and turns to face the
doctor as well.
The nurse hung back, nervous, anxious-looking,
while René laid on the charms and purred through that accent so thick to
gain Dr. Guiruis's attention and favor. Molly watched them both for a
couple of seconds, looking somewhere between impressed and bothered with
René (but this wasn't abnormal, really).
Her attention would soon shift back behind her, though, back to the parking lot.
Paranoid. Cautious.
Prey.
Vex
Doctor Guirguis!
Rameena
Guirguis's attention returns to René and she is about to hold up a
brisk and commanding shut up not now I'm listening to a phone ring
finger. His hi, hello is charming enough that there is less briskness
than there might otherwise be, and she slows, and her gaze doesn't turn
cold and aloof, and she doesn't continue walking to her car.
Instead;
she holds up the shut up not now finger, and she turns so that she is
angled more toward René Jacobs and Molly Toombs, less toward the parking
lot and what she might see if she were to look ahead and past a few
other parked cars toward her own. The little island of light there-at.
Whatever she hears on the other side of that cellphone causes the
corners of her mouth to pull down, and she pockets it with a sigh, and
then looks expectantly at the pair. Yes, the pair.
"Evening, you two. What can I do for you, Dr. Jacobs?" Her voice is full; throaty. The kind of voice to soothe a patient.
[Does Guirguis notice Molly's attention is divided? We'll do a Percept + Alert here.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
[Wits 4 + Alertness 3: Are you looking too much into what I'm doing, Doc? (Cool-Headed Spec.)]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Vex
This
is a moment for cool heads, isn't it. Molly; she knows the moment that
her attention-elsewhere draws the doctor's attention. She knows, too,
because when she looks back across the parking lot (there's a bit of
distance, a light-pole or two and maybe a big truck between the St.
Luke's employees and the vampires now, but nothing is hidden), that
whatever's going on there hasn't boiled over quite yet. She can perhaps
read the tension still in the dark-haired vampire who is grabbing his
gut now, hunching (what's happening?), though the blonde seems very
still, and she knows because it's one of those moments, a moment of
clear-sightedness, of cunning, that whatever balance is at work over
there: the doctor's presence will upset it; the doctor will, arrogant as
any surgeon, sail into that situation and make it worse as soon as she
sees it, because she will be suspicious of people so near - well. Her
car, but maybe Molly still doesn't know that. She knows, perhaps, or
suspects that René will get involved, or who knows what, and it'll be a
mess, a total mess.
She knows this all so clearly she probably has
a good feeling that she can deflect it from happening, too. Because she
does have an opportunity.
Molly Toombs
[Manipulation 2 + Subterfuge 2: Play off paranoia as hiding sekrit hand holdings. WP!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Molly Toombs
There's
a moment while Molly's looking back out over the parking lot where she
sees the figures that they were fleeing, and has some strange, clear
understanding of what she was seeing. How the power was swinging in the
stand-off, how much was left to unravel still in that battle that had
yet to come.
Then, soon as it happened, Molly felt suspicious eyes
fall upon her. The surgeon had asked René what he had to say, but her
attention soon slipped to the nurse who stood behind him with her hands
in her coat pockets and her eyes intentionally back, away, away from the
handsome doctor who stood between the two of them.
Somehow,
apparently because she felt compelled to perform well under pressure,
the nurse was able to blush on demand. It was probably thanks to her
complexion-- a natural redhead, it didn't take much for her face and
ears to flush bright anyways. She twisted her posture uncomfortably,
made herself look embarrassed and on the spot. Caught. Discovered,
red-handed.
Holding hands with the doctor who walked her to his car-- no, walking her home now. Molly said nothing, but skimmed her eyes briefly to the pair of doctors before looking away again.
Nothing to see over there, just a nurse and a doctor and nothing else going on worth looking into.
René Jacobs
Think fast, Jacobs. Your associate is about to do something terrible.
When
the other doctor holds up that quieting finger Jacobs continues riding
the wave of pretend-charm to affect an air of contrition. Oh. Right. Phone. Sorry.
And he waits with his hands in his pockets and his brow furrowed as if
he's caught in thought. Mind whirring even though he just got off a
shift that ran two hours over because he decided to stay to help with
that nasty car crash that came in at 11:52.
Lightbulb. Molly might
be able to see a moment of inspiration as she glances over the bearded
man's face. Or else he's just perking up at having been drawn out of his
own thoughts by Guirguis's putting away the phone and asking what's
going on.
"That, ah, that open femur fracture I sent up this
afternoon," he says. Like that's going to jog her memory. They can't
give names out here anyway and names don't mean shit in emergency
medicine half the time anyway. It's the viscera that sticks. "Did the
social worker ever make it in to talk to him, after? I didn't see a,
ah..."
Shit, what's the word. This wasn't Molly's patient. His
thick accent is paying off now. It's not such a stretch to think he
really can't remember the English if Guirguis doesn't know how long he's
been in America.
"... in the computer, you know, with the flag next to it...?"
He looks back at Molly. It's not that fucking hard to remember the word for Consult Note
but maybe he's just tired. Or maybe he's really just looking back
across the lot out of his periphery to see if anybody's getting stabbed.
Vex
[Does Dr. Guirguis pick up on Molly's BSery?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
"Consult Note," Molly adds quietly, patiently. Still playing at pretend and glancing back to the surgeon and smiling politely.
Molly Toombs
[Manip 2 + Sub 2]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Vex
[?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
René Jacobs
"CONSULT NOTE." Thank you!
He turns back to Guirguis and shakes his head. How silly of him. "Fuck
me, it's a long day. I didn't see the consult note, so I was wondering
if Jill didn't see him or if she just didn't type it in yet."
Vex
Dr.
Guirguis is charmed by her new colleague. Finds him, in this moment,
charming, yes? But Dr. Guirguis's eyes are sharp and when Molly's
attention begins to stray, Guirguis's attention begins to follow that
path. Molly sees it. Molly is quick. Deflects: look at that blush --
look how red she turns. Look at how awkward, how embarrassed, she gets.
Guirguis doesn't finish following Molly's gaze to whatever it was the
young nurse was glancing toward. This, again. There is no sympathetic
look or headshake, but she doesn't exacerbate an awkward situation by
referencing it. No, her attention returns more completely to René, who
begins to lose Guirguis' interest as soon as he says open femur
fracture.
Why is this important at two am in the morning, when she's on
her way to her car? Is it because he's from -- where was it, Chicago? Is
this what passes for chitchat in Chicago?
"I don't think so, no,
but I'm not sure. Listen, Dr. Jacobs," a pause, because she herself does
not want to be rude. Briskness is just a habit.
"That's the kind
of question I don't want to be stopped for after a long day of work,
okay?" Speaking of okay, Guirguis offers a demure and cheschire smile to
them both, as if distantly conscious that she might have sounded -- oh
who knows. The point is: a brief smile, and she turns back to the
parking lot.
And her car.
And the vampires, right? They're
still there. Maybe Molly and René, given a moment to look, would see the
blonde one slow-ly closing on the other one, briefly out-of-sight
behind a car, and then --
But hey wait, Guirguis is pausing, with a
frown. "Is everything all right?" Who knows why she's asking? Oh.
Because of how embarrassed Molly looked. Maybe.
Molly Toombs
Molly
glanced briefly toward René, watching that his face was, in that
moment, aimed back toward her-- but really his eyes were flitting from
her to the parking lot to absorb what was happening. She tried to gauge
what was going on based on the expression he wore, but couldn't make
too much out.
The surgeon had deflected Dr. Jacobs, charming
though he may be, and started walking toward her car again. Molly had
swallowed nervously, but before she had a chance to bluster or sweat
about it Dr. Guirguis stopped, looked back to the pair, and asked if
everything was okay or not.
Molly blinked like a deer caught in
the headlights, then cleared her throat and moved one hand from its
pocket so she could adjust the infinity scarf around her neck. The pale
cream of the soft knitted fabric only called to notice the red of her
face all the further.
"Oh, uh, yeah. Dr. Jacobs was just being a
good samaritan and helping prevent a nurse from walking home alone at
two in the morning."
Contrary to the fact that she's openly disliked the man since the first week he arrived.
René Jacobs
Is everything alright?
"Eh?"
Like
he has no idea what she's talking about. Molly fields that one. But
Molly's about as smooth as a woodland creature encountering traffic for
the first time.
Good enough spot for a bit of redirection. He
really does look very sorry to still be talking or to have held her up
like this for this long or:
"I'm sorry, I thought you were on-call
or I would not, before, with the shop talk. You're okay? To walk to
your car? Because we can walk back with you." A quick glance to Molly.
He at least doesn't appear to think anything weird or wrong was
happening just before Guirguis showed up but why would he, smug bastard.
"I don't like to walk to my car alone this time of night, but I am a big scary person, yeah?"
Oh
yeah Jacobs you were real big and scary when the guy who's hanging
around by your car jumped you in the parking garage last weekend.
Maintain the poker face, Molly.
Molly Toombs
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3, spending WP!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
René Jacobs
[perc + alert, auspex eats the +1 diff]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Vex
René notices everything.
The
everything that René notices: István, closing in on Vex, oh so close.
The angle isn't conducive to seeing everything, not where René is
standing with Molly and Guirguis, but he can see. He knows. He can see
his regnant take something out of his jacket, see that Vex is talking,
talking, hear it distantly tick-tacking on his senses.
Molly does not notice everything.
Molly
does seem to notice that maybe the two vampires over there are going to
have a nice and diplomatic talk. No yelling or anything. The cars, and
the angles, make a clear vision difficult, and so does not attracting
Guirguis's attention that-a-way.
Vex
"Oh. Do you
need a ride?" That to the nurse. Guirguis will blame that one on
exhaustion. Her eyes are half-hooded now, her eyelids purpled with
weariness and caffiene abuse. Those arching eyebrows have arched still
more. Her motivation: why, who knows if one isn't looking?
Then
René. Guirguis offers him another cheschire smile. This one is less cool
than the other, and she inclines her head. Her throaty honey-soothe
voice is a lot more cool than her smile when she says, and again, there
seems to be something she's politely concealing, "It's fine, Dr. Jacobs.
I carry a taser and I've had to use it before, so rest assured I'm a
deft hand. I rather like the night."
A pause; a space for them to
say more or maybe for Molly to accept her offer of a ride or who knows
what. And then, clearly, the intention is to
go home. Go to her car. She's not looking in that direction yet.
René Jacobs
[perc + subterfuge: what are you politely concealing there dr. guirguis?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (4, 5, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 4 )
Molly Toombs
The
surgeon offered her a ride, and Molly blinked in surprise. Put on the
spot, she defaulted to shaking her head and declining the offer
reflexively. "Oh, no, thank you, I'm not a far walk away."
Besides, to play with the act that she sold, she wanted to sneak way with the other doctor, remember?
Molly
could see the vampires still over there, it seemed they were just
talking now, though. Still, she couldn't be sure it was safe to be over
in that direction yet. She couldn't just let the surgeon get caught up
in that mess, but she couldn't make herself too obviously be trying to
hold the woman up. She looked tired. She would soon grow aggravated
with the interruptions. She no doubt just very much wanted to go home.
She
didn't want to get too much on the surgeon's bad side. Molly had her
job and workplace persona to worry about. So she glanced anxiously to
Dr. Jacobs, seeking help.
You're the smooth charming one, I'm just bookish.
René Jacobs
The
lift of her chin and the flash of her throat catches Jacobs' attention.
It's almost as if he's standing outside in the presence of an
intelligent successful attractive maybe-available woman his own goddamn
age and hey wouldn't you know it he has a pulse too.
But he's
sharper than he looks. A lot sharper than the Bumbling Harmless
Foreigner act he puts on when he's pretending to be charming. He isn't
charming. He is in good spirits usually and he genuinely loves the work
that he does but he's terrible at small talk and he's even more terrible
at whatever the hell this is supposed to be.
Molly is acting like
a schoolgirl who was interrupted in the act of attempting something
inappropriate and Jacobs is completely fucking oblivious up until he
catches something in Guirguis's gaze that makes it dawn on him.
Oh
shit. It definitely looks like he's trying to get in the pants of a
nurse who's almost half his age. He might as well keep acting like he's
oblivious. He turns to Molly like why on earth would she rather walk
when someone is offering her a ride.
"You're sure?"
István
[dex + melee: SURPRISE BITCH -2 dice fuck you Presence]
Dice: 6 d10 TN9 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
István
[damage]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
István
[lol i forgot to add successes from the attack derp]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
István
[SON OF A BITCH]
István
[dex + melee: jiggle the handle, buddy]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7) ( fail )
István
[REROLL THAT SHIT WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU]
Dice: 7 d10 TN9 (1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )
István
[you're about as useful as a paper asshole, istván. damage.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Vex
[Soak.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 6) ( success x 1 )
István
[good job stealing all the successes rené you fucking cocksucker]
István
[preemptive DON'T LOOK AT ME stealth roll]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
René Jacobs
[perc + alert]
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 2, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
Jacobs
looked surprised, asked if she was sure when she declined the car ride
that the surgeon offered home. Molly looked at him as though a screw
had come loose in his head. Gee, why could she possibly want to avoid
walking back into the parking lot, where vampires lurked and could
possibly be creating mayhem and danger?
She wanted to keep Dr.
Guiruis from becoming entangled in that circumstance as well, but that
desire only pushed so far. There was only so much she could do short of
physically barring the doctor from continuing further, and as we've
already established Molly wasn't quite willing to go that far. She
didn't want to create too many waves-- she had a job to hold down, rent
to pay and all of that.
"Yeah...," she said slowly, after a
second, and adjusted the strap of the tote bag that she always carried
about instead of a regular purse where it sat on her shoulder. "I'm
pretty sure. I don't want to be a bother or anything, and the weather
isn't all that bad. The walk isn't awful."
That parking lot might kill you, though.
Molly Toombs
[Perception + Alertness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Vex
There
is a very small sound. Who knows what it is? Nobody by the stairs,
although it does come generally from the direction of the two vampires.
But
if anybody at the stairs looks, perhaps they won't see the two men
(vampires) standing any longer. In fact, they very likely won't, not
from the stairs.
"I understand," Guirguis says to Molly, with
another faint and cheschire smile. She reaches into her pocket and takes
out her phone again, checking for a text that hasn't come. They'd've
heard it, sharp a pair as they are. She seems to be checking more out of
anxiety about a return text or a call than because she wants an excuse
to get away from René and Molly. Guirguis doesn't need an excuse, after
all. "Like I said, I rather like the night."
"...And I'm..." A
brief frown, looking at her phone. She swallows a sigh. "But I'm going
to head out now." A brief grin; like, come on, seriously, you gonna stop
me again? "Be careful." She taps the phone to her forehead, and then
turns to go to her car.
Again.
René Jacobs
Brief grin back. No, ma'am, he is not going to stop you again.
"Goodnight!" he calls after her. No point trying to smooth out the awkwardness now. Just ride it all the way to the end.
As
soon as Guirguis has walked far enough away to give the two of them her
back Jacobs' eyes go wide and he holds his hands out to Molly like to
ask What the fuck was that?! without opening his mouth. Lets go
the breath it seems he had been holding ever since he started pretending
to be capable of normal human interaction before he plunges his hand
into the pocket of his overcoat and rummages for his cigarettes.
He can't see either vampire anymore.
Worry comes across his features but he doesn't move.
Molly Toombs
As
soon as the surgeon turns her back, Dr. Jacobs gesticulates his
exasperation toward the swing-shift nurse that he was supposed to simply
be driving home because they had a shaky understanding and unspoken
mutual agreement-- he would be a good person and help look out for her
while a vampire stalked these grounds attacking and wildly draining
victims, and she would relax some and stop being so aggressively
difficult to be around for him, and also leave the fact that he was Less
Than Normal alone (as far as sharing that information goes, at least).
This didn't mean that they got along any better, though.
The
gesture was returned almost in mirror. His hands went out toward her,
open, and hers went up toward the sky instead, as though asking some
greater being what she did to deserve being saddled with him as a
partner in lie-weaving and distraction-generating. They were both awful
at this, and it made it easy to blame the other.
Molly started
taking steps toward the stairs, and made it halfway up the first of
three steep concrete flights before she noticed that René, her
unfortunate companion, wasn't following. Instead he was fumbling for a
cigarette and frowning in worry and staying put. It looked as though
Molly were ready to start yelling at him, but instead she just hissed
quietly: "Are you running to safety or what? Jesus, what happened to
'come on'?"
Vex
Rameena Guirguis doesn't look over
her shoulder to see what happens in her absence. She is far, far too
polite. Does one of her co-workers hiss at the other? Rameena Guirguis
tries calling whatever number she was calling just a short while ago
again, phone to her ear as she cuts past a truck, going the long-way
around so that she can reach her car.
Her car which is unlocked. Ah well. Maybe she forgot.
The driver's side of the jag is the side that's nearest René's car.
René Jacobs
Molly
is right. If they hang around then Guirguis might notice them and it's
already a good thing she doesn't know which car is his or that they
could have very easily gotten into it and Molly could have been dropped
off and home already. Even that's not the greatest of their concerns.
She was a blip they had to stall as long as possible because if she had
kept on going she might have been the latest victim of a frenzied
vampire.
Too many other cars are in the way and too many lamp
posts and too much darkness and shadow for them to really see what's
going on. For all they know the skittish black-haired creature overtook
the blond one and is running through the shadows right now in
preparation to throw himself at them.
If the noise he makes in
response to Molly's inquiry was the start to an English word it isn't
one he finishes and if it's in another language it isn't one she speaks.
One syllable caught in his throat and then he's snapping himself back
out of it.
The ghoul turns away from the parking lot.
"Okay," he says voice pitched low so as not to carry as he hurries up the steps behind her, "go!"
Molly Toombs
Relief
washes over Molly's freckled face, and it's probably the least negative
expression that René has seen upon her face to date. She was holding
on to the iron railings when she was turned about to look down at him,
and let go with her right hand but kept hold with her left when Dr.
Jacobs started after her. She hesitated, just long enough to look back
out into the parking lot, toward the Jaguar coupe and the modest little
sedan that René drove, hoping to catch some glimpse of activity, to see
what was going on with the trembling addict and her companion's
'associate'.
Whatever she did or didn't see, René was coming up
fast and urging her to go, so Molly turned about and started a
quick-paced climb up the stairs toward the streets.
István
By
the time the trauma surgeon has made her way over to her gorgeous wet
dream of a car the blond man is coming up from a crouch on his own side
of the piece of shit Volkswagen that has been parked in the lot all day.
Like he'd been coming out of the hospital at the end of his own day and
fumbled his keys to the pavement.
She hadn't heard them drop but she's off in her own world by now. Distracted and wanting more distraction.
As
he gets back to his feet the blond man doesn't pay any attention to
her. The Volkswagen chirps its inane chirp that announces to everyone
within earshot that the doors are now unlocked and he gets behind the
wheel.
Two minutes later Jacobs' phone buzzes. He has a text message.
Vex
[Dex + Drive, I'm outta here says Dr. Guirguis. -1 diff because this car is a dream, baby.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Vex
You'd
think somebody like Rameena would probably drive carefully. She does
not. As soon as she has a moment of why is my car unlocked, as soon as
she checks the rearview window, squinting toward the stairs and then
looking at her own face, dissatisfied, tired, click-sound of disgust in
the back of her throat, she puts the jag into gear and
oh, it
purrs. Purrs, as it turns into lightning and turns so-so sharply streaks
picking up speedspeedspeed taking a corner more speed speed speed
maybe a cop'll pull her over. Maybe not. The streets aren't all that full, and she wants to go.
Exit, one surgeon who gets to live another day.
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