Grave
The Fine Print
1) Be forewarned this
scene could become very dangerous. If you are averse to character death
or permanent psychological or physical damage you may want to sit this
one out.
2) There may be content of an adult and graphic nature in
the vein of personal and grotesque horror as well as violence. If you
have any triggers in particular that may necessitate your withdrawal
from the scene please let me know beforehand (via PM or instant
messenger) and I will notify you if I think it best you sit this scene
out. I will be glad to run a separate storyline for any of your PCs in
the system that is more accommodating to what would make play fun for
you.
3) All players are expected to post for their character
within twenty minutes after a system post. If I mark that a round has
moved into a posting order it will be alphabetical or by initiative
order depending on circumstances. In this case the first player to post
after the system post will have fifteen minutes and all other players
after them will have five minutes to post.
4) All players are
expected to roll for any relevant Flaws at the beginning of the scene.
Vampires will start with 1d10 blood points in their blood pool (plus one
blood point per dot in Herd or Generation up to their maximum blood
pool). Ghouls have full blood pools unless any were spent IC recently
before they got a chance to feed again.
Kali
[[Nightmares]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Kali
[[Blood Poo + 3 (Generation)l]]
Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (9) ( success x 1 )
Jade
[blood pooL! +5? yaaaaaay 8th gen ¬_¬]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Grave
You
have your reasons for being in East Colfax, this deep and this
destitute, this far into the layers of Purgatory. This place where the
walls of Hell are so close to being beaten down and all too often a
devil manages to slip through the cracks and torment the already
tormented.
You have a reason for being here. Of course you do.
Maybe you're lost? Maybe you're not?
Maybe
you were seeing that band at that dive bar and now you're thinking of
making the walk to the bus stop. You'll survive, right?
Maybe
you've been told about a mad Malkavian by the name of Billy Strahan that
the Sheriff wants a word with or maybe you want to have a word with him
before she has a chance to silence his mad tongue for good. Or maybe
you just want Narcisa to owe you a favor. Either way these were his last
known whereabouts.
Maybe you're running errands of an illicit nature.
Maybe you live here and you think you're the most dangerous thing on the block. Maybe you live here and are certain you're not
Elucidate.
East Colfax is so curious as to why you've wandered into its maw. Let
it show you around. Mind the sharp points and bottomless gap.
Molly Toombs
Reasons
for being on this stretch of street were neither here nor there. Molly
was keeping cards close to her chest these days, so whatever it was
that had summoned her away from her apartment building set comfortably
near the downtown district of the city, she hadn't announced it to a
soul.
All that mattered was that she was there. Molly Toombs,
single woman out on this stretch of road alone, and without any kind of
supernatural intimidating aura or exterior of 'don't fuck with me'
toughness to keep the evils at bay. Really, all she had to go on was
that she was good at looking like she belonged. Case in point, how she
was standing on the sidewalk, nearer to the curb than away, not far off
from a sign indicating a bus stop. No bench, just room to stand.
She
was looking down at her phone, standing with her weight comfortably
distributed from feet to hips. Not glancing nervously, not checking
every scuffed boot that passed behind her. Just trying to mind her own
damn business.
We know how these things go, though. She could try to mind her business all she wanted, it certainly couldn't last for long.
Kali
This
is Kali. If it's in East Colfax, she has a reason to be here. After
all, this is where she reigns as a drug baron, and so she keeps her ear
to the ground in terms of what's going on, makes sure that her area
stays chill. Even in these nights where the Sword and Tower are at each
other's throats and the sun isn't having the same effect on the Kindred
and everything is vaguely portentious and ominous and God motherfucking
dammit son of a puta en botas de cuero futu-i pizda ma-tii...
(Yes, we're using that one again. She's been so busy that she hasn't had time to vary up her streams of profanity.)
Anyway,
the point is that she's out. And she's heard rumor of this Malkavian
wandering around the area. She doesn't like the Sheriff sending people
into her territory so she's on the lookout. She's in her usual
hooker-biker garb, with a black corset imprinted with lips on it
underneath a leather jacket and distinctly short skirt with knee-high
boots. You know, the Kali special.
She's keeping her attention focused as she goes looking through her domain for this Kook.
[Per+Invest]]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Verna Gardner
Verna's not here because she wants to be. Oh, not this
street, and not at night. She's here because her car decided to shut
down and not start again after stopping at a red light -- which is so
very unfair. She keeps regular maintenance according to the schedule and
everything! Some idiot mechanic must have missed something, or skipped
something, or... something.
And who knows if AAA is even going to
have a tow truck available within a decent time at this hour? They, of
course, say as much on the phone when she calls. She's managed to get
her car off the main stretch, just to the side, and sits within, looking
up her particular car trouble symptoms online, hoping it might be
something she can just fix.
Just fix. At night. On Colfax. In her
nice clothes and demeanor that screams 'easy mark'. Yeah, maybe not.
Still, it's something to do while she waits.
Nobody
Tonight
Jack who is Jack of anything but hearts has many plans and he doesn't
want to travel far and wide, doesn't want to go by rat-path or by
cat-path, doesn't wish to slip beyond the pale, wishes only these
things: to find, with luck, a Billy Strahan, with luck, good luck not
bad luck, there's too much of bad luck it curdles on the tongue like
hunger; to find, with luck, a Kali, a gypsy-hearted, thief-fingered
Deception-tongued creature; then later to meet, with luck, with an
untrustworthy red-haired nurse who's been embroiled in a cause, the
quest, skimming along. So: Jack. He's got his diminutive pigeon-chested
gulp-throated scraggle-curled occult nerd Mask on (This Face: lopestery,
long, slouching) in preparation except for when he wicks along Unseen, a
presence nobody thinks very much about and thank god. He's just a big
fucking Nobody, after all, and that
that's why there's a Jack in East Colfax and he doesn't look like much at all.
[Percept (Hidden Things) + Investigation]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Nobody
[7 suxx.]
Jade
Jade
has her means of hearing the gossip of the city. In particular, word
ripples through the ranks of her networks, rustlng little whispers that
flitter to her ear.
A Billy Strahan, hm? Hm. The Setite isn't
terribly intresting in being owed a favor by Narcisa Rulfo (that is a
lie, lielielie, of course she would, who wouldn't? but ah, Jade's
cards, so delicately arranged, would not easily withstand that sort of
pressure from one side or the other). So then, curiosity it would seem
is what brought this snake to this neighborhood.
She is alone,
alas. As much as she would love love love to bring one of her precious
underlings with her, this is an investigation, at least to start.
So she is in the area of Colfax, then, a solitary figure in shades of grey, a very young woman in a very dark neighborhood.
[percept (detail oriented) + investigate]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Jade
[4 suxx]
Jade
[manip + street (specialty not applicable)]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Bo
Close
ranks, bring them in, prepare for the coming storm. Those were Bo's
orders, the requirements of her domitor and so Bo had set to work,
drawing in the lines of Kali's empire and tightening them down,
preparing them for the danger to come. Perhaps that danger was Billy,
perhaps it was a mad bomber with plans of utter devastation, or maybe it
was simply the same old bad guys with the same old plans. Regardless Bo
was out overlook and watching for signs of trouble, perched on the
first level of a fire escape that jutted from the edge of alleyway.
It
would be fun to imagine herself a princess of the streets, watching
over those few individuals she knew were her's, were Kalis as they
cleared out, leaving this part of Colfax for safe abodes, more trusted
ground. But Bo is still so new to this life, and even more so to the
life that lay behind the dusky curtain, and so thought it was fun to
imagine, as she so often did she simply stayed alert, leaning on the
railing of the fire escape as she considered those moving here and
there.
One never did know what you might see on Colfax afterall.
Bo
[Per+Alert]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Nobody
[Jack rolls: Let the records show I am a Nosferatu with Unseen Presence on.]
Grave
Give
a lunatic like Billy enough time on his hands and who knows what he'll
get into? The lasting effects of the blood moon eclipse give him an
overabundance. What's the last rumor that had been going around Elysium?
Billy
had been shouting about them all residing in a dark house with broken
windows. He'd said it would leave them all buried. It would collapse
around them. They'd be drained dry and left to the earth. Left to
eternity and he says that part like it's a curse.
It's all a curse!
Billy'd
said that the world would sing and shake, the ground would dance, and
they would remain hiding under their beds instead of facing the
skeletons in their collective closet.
Billy'd said he was hungry.
He said he knew a place to go and that's the last time anyone had heard
from him before he'd disappeared into Colfax.
Billy has said a lot
of things in his time in Denver, but never with this kind of fervor.
Fanaticism. Like he was considering a conversion. Taking up a new
banner. He'd walked out of Elysium eyes gazing up at the moon and
whispering to himself, “I'm coming, I'm coming, I promise, I'm coming.”
Or so word gets around.
It's
Jade who gets there first. This isn't her territory and maybe it's that
distance from places like this that gives her an ability to see the
greater picture. To come at this problem logically.
There had been
a place where a harmless Caitiff (Pander?) had lived. Harmless in the
way Jade comes off as harmless, so very distant from her Sect that gave
her a more respectable name and clan, and this was a place where
vampires could come to rent a girl and drink from her. It had sat on a
corner and look at the three-story house all desolate on the corner?
With it's broken-wood-fenced-in back yard. With it's cracked asphalt
driveway all overgrown with weeds. With its windows all broken with
jagged glass and boarded up. It looks so dark in there.
It's a
place to look. It's as good a place as any, actually better than any
others, even if it's abandoned and no longer a watering hole. Billy
hadn't seemed that in touch with reality anyway. Maybe he's in there
sucking on rats thinking they're hookers.
Bo is there as well.
She's watching. This is open territory and after the winter maybe it's
worth looking into taking. That woman, Mona, who Bo doesn't know was
Pander, but does know from the word on the streets, is gone and it's not
her place anymore. It should be someone's place. That would be a good
drop house or crack den.
And it's then Bo will notice Kali coming
down the street. Kali's proximity is her curse. She knows every inch of
her territory and who knows which of the various places fitting the
description it might be. She's last there and Bo who happens to be there
will notice her and not notice many others except for...
The woman waiting for the bus.
The woman with the broken down car around the corner face buried under the hood.
This is a growing nexus of things that should not or definitely should be here.
All
the while an unseen nobody stalks in the shadows. Was there. Already
knows, because of his own worldview that may or may not be distorted,
where Billy means and where he will be.
Jade
A
place where you could rent a girl and drink from her, eh? Sounds like a
place Jade might have an interest in. Did she know this Pander? It's
possible she knew of her, maybe, or that she knows what that broken down house used to be.
There
are other people out tonight. Others out looking for the wandering
Malkavian. Others not out looking for the wandering Malkavian. Jade
doesn't have much interest in a woman waiting for a bus. Woman with a
phone? The people with names held inside it will miss her if she goes
missing. Woman with the broke down car? Someone would notice the
abandoned car, or notice that someone was no longer making payments, or
any of a dozen other things Jade doesn't have to think about considering
when it comes to her preferred prey. And besides, she's not yet
feeling a sting of hunger. She's not yet feeling desperate enough not
to care much about who she offers to Set. She's not yet noticing those
breathing that oughtn't be noticed.
She is at the house where
nobody stalks the shadows ahead of her, and does he see her? Pretty
young thing, "exotic" they say because of her non-white features, never
caring that she was born in this country. Jade would like to check out
the building, is Billy there? Is anybody home?
She looks for a place to slip a look inside, a window to press against, one cast in shadows that she can vanish into them.
[if such a window is available, Jade will activate her cloak of shadows.]
Kali
A
good, long look in the dark parts of Colfax. That's what had led the
Ravnos on a bit of a hunt for the potential place, and she'd come up
empty on several spots. Now she's here at this house, looking up at it
as she approaches with a cigarette hanging from her lips. It's just the
right sort of place, and the Ravnos is a pragmatist, but she also knows
(knew before she was Dead) that there are reasons to fear shadowed
places like this.
She glances around, surveying the area. That's
when she sees Molly, who she recognizes, at the bus stop. She knows the
woman, knows that other creatures of the night have taken an interest
in her. That makes her presence here...conspicious. Not that Kali is
suspicious of her, but the Ravnos also knows that coincidence is often
not really coincidence. The Ravnos speak of mayaparisatya, of
illusion and truth and paths of fate. And Kali is Phuri Dae, so while
she does not subscribe to all of those beliefs, she does have some faith
in it. And so she mutters to herself in Romani, then smiles and nods
to Molly as she passes her on the street on her way to the house.
And
there's Verna, with her broken-down car in just a certain place. That
gets Kali's attention too. But she doesn't know that one, just keeps an
eye on her as she moves to head closer to the house. She frowns as she
sees Bo there in the vicinity as well.
"Okay, this is just
getting creepy," she says to herself as she starts walking directly to
the house. Bo is given a meaningful look to the woman with the car, one
she probably knows well by now. It suggests, Run interference for me?
And then she's walking into the yard, looking for means of entrance into the place.
Bo
Kali
had said she was busy, that she was not to be distrubed tonight save
for a fire burning down the warehouse or the enemy knocking at the
gates. She had left Bo to her capable devices, knowing all to well how
to run the empire without her domitor for a few hours. These were skills
that a youth such as her really shouldn't have. But she does, and they
grow stronger by the day.
So seeing Kali here is unexpected, and
though Bo might normally wave frantically or whistle a cat call down
upon her boss, instead she simply started down, moving to the ladder and
quickly dropping down to the ground floor so she could start to
approach her target location. That is until Kali see's her, and gives
her that look.
She had been keeping an eye on the others, these
other curiosities that had found their way into an area they really
probably didn't belong in. She had thought about helping the girl with
the car, get her outta here as quickly as possible so she didn't become a
statistic. She wasn't going to, she had her plan...but then she
remembered that not everyone was like her, not everyone knew how to fix a
car and well...Kali had said so...so she strides on up to the petulant
automobile and rapped on the trunk with a closed fist as she leaned over
to look past the hood at Verna.
"Hey there Goldie, need some help
gettin outta here before the three bears come on back?" She asked with a
warm, friendly smile, the very air around her seeming to thrum with the
vitality of her being.
Nobody
He has
thoughts about the building, about Billy Strahan's tongue. He has
thoughts about madness, too, about those whose blood is laced with it,
whose insights are fractured: broken - like those windows. Moon-mad,
Malkav, and perhaps Jack considers this a quest to keep another tongue
from being culled, being re-fashioned into wood, being yanked dead into
ash, slurped dry, dead.
He has to count the edges on one of the
windows: one, two, three, skip four, and he has to count the cracks,
too, just in case, and he has to count the redheads, one, two, three,
that's good, a nice odd number, but wait.
Three redheads. One
brunette. That's four. That's no good at all. Count yourself, Jack. Oh,
that's fine then, except he's not really a brunette, and...
Molly
Toombs is one of them. Bo, Kali. Whatever his expression does, who
knows? Nobody. Nobody stays a nobody while Nobody cases the dark house
with dark windows he doesn't need to count any longer and Molly well
Molly will take care of herself for a moment won't she.
He wants
to know what is inside the house. He doesn't want to go into the house.
The house is a box and boxes are full of things one doesn't want to
unclasp, release: Jack is not mad.
He wants into the yard. He'll go there, too. Crouch, wary of splinters. His fingers twitch like he wants to text someone.
Jade,
she's pressing up against a window, Kali, she's treading into the yard,
Jack, he's drifting over and around, and he's by blood by bloodknot by
chain and canny knack calling his Prince of Cats, his Eyes in the Dark,
c'mere Boots, c'mere, and he's staying back.
Verna Gardner
Suddenly,
there's a strange woman banging on her trunk, and Verna jumps, looks
up. The window gets rolled down a crack (because this could be a trick,
obviously).
"Oh, hello, I... I've called Triple-A already. Just, they're taking a lot of time."
Grave
Empty
lot to the back, flat brick wall of its four family neighbor adjacent,
and three stories facing the street, with it's high (if broken in
places) fence, that back yard has the kind of privacy that few outdoor
spaces in the city allow. It's a good place to try breaking into the
house. As good a place as any excepting the fact that it is already
occupied.
Denver is overcast and this evening and that full moon
above is hidden by the time these investigators and hunters of madmen
get to the back yard. The street light manages to shed a bit of its
luminance into the backyard. There is a large flashlight, a box shaped
yellow one with a large bulb and lens, sitting in the dirt and shining
upon a sight to behold.
Oh, there is Billy. He's not the sight to
behold. That's still to come. But there is Billy standing on the back
porch, or actually in the process of emerging from the house. Somewhere
along his trek Billy managed to claim a rusted shovel and it's gripped
in his trembling hands, eyes still cast upward toward where the moon
should be if it weren't obscured by the now overcast sky. This obscuring
or maybe his arrival as his destination, something seems to shake him
from his lunacy and he looks downward to take in the same sight that
Kali and Jack come upon.
That flashlight with its lantern glow is
shining upon two figures. Kali will recognize both of them on sight. The
woman that had cut and withered and turned to ash whole chunks of Baja,
her clanmate. The woman with the red carnation who had worn that
strange ring She is of dark skin and she is so wafer thin you can almost
read through her. Gaunt. Still she stands with an undeniable poise, a
skeleton wearing ashy and loose flesh like a hanger and confidence. The
other figure is the Trinidadian man whose name has been revealed as
George Phelps in the ensuing news broadcast on the hit and run in
Federal. He also has a shovel. Unlike Billy, who suddenly looks
incensed, this gangly runt rat of a man is hard at work putting it to
use.
He is digging into the ground of the yard.
All will hear what comes next. Even Verna through her cracked window. Even Molly where she waits for her bus stop.
“Don't you fucking touch her!”
It's
Billy. Billy isn't a small vampire. He has a good old boy kind of look
to him, blond hair combed in a delightfully proper manner and blue eyed
even if they're manic now, built and muscular and it shows in his pain
white t-shirt and jeans. When he shouts it's in a Texan accent. Whoever
had Embraced this once-a-young-man had no doubt robbed the world of a
noble bumpkin. He raises the shovel like it's a baseball bat and takes a
step down from the back porch toward the two and the whole the more
servile of them is digging.
The woman, the dark woman with her
black curls and her red lipstick wearing a trench coat, looks back and
forth between Kali and Billy and snarls.
Bo
"Yeaaah
they tend to do that when they think they might get mugged as they fix a
flat." Bo comments as she comes to the window and looks in at Verna.
She backs up of course, well out of arms reach, both for the woman's
sake, but also because just like Verna thought. This COULD be a trap.
"Your
call if you wanna wait it out. If not I took a few automotive classes
and I might be able to get you running again...maybe, totally your
choice." Bo said with a shrug as she she took long clunky strides to the
front of the car to look in under the hood, taking a gander at what lay
within.
"What the hell got you to come down through Colfax girl? This is not the detour to anywhere worthwhile."
But
then theres screaming, a hoarse yell that has Bo looking away from the
car for a few moments...she wants to run, wants to take off in the
direction of that noise, so much so she actually has to grip the edge of
the hood of Verna's car and turn back to look in at the inner works and
distract herself with the diagnosis.
"Like I said...bad place for everyone Goldie."
[Per+Crafts]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Molly Toombs
This
woman wasn't abandoned or lost or stuck, not Molly. She looked like
she knew what she was doing, didn't look like she needed help. This,
perhaps, is why Bo beelines it toward Verna and her car against the
curb. Molly had glanced up and noticed the exchange at the car, watched
curiously for a moment, then went back to her phone. Verna was inside
her car still so Molly didn't see her very well, and Bo she'd only met
once and long enough a time ago that she wasn't pulling the face to
memory. Maybe she'd recognize it better splashed in blood.
Molly
herself, she looked different from when Bo saw her last too. Her hair
was shorter, jet black then. Now it was longer and smoothed into a
preppy ponytail, dyed red with bangs cut across the forehead. Tonight
she dressed in a lovely lace blouse that buttoned up near to the throat,
tucked into a gray skirt that hovered a couple inches above the knee.
She wore black tights and flat pale gray dress shoes, with a light black
jacket on overtop and left unbuttoned. Pearls in her earlobes, no
rings on her fingers. She looked neat and well kept, certainly not the
kind of person to be jumping fences and breaking into old, tired looking
wooden houses that are several building fronts up the sidewalk from
her.
Attention had already started to wander from the two women
and the broken down car, but the shouting not to 'fucking touch her'
pulled it firmly, quickly away. Molly's eyebrows hopped up on her face
in mild surprise, then immediately hunkered back down in a frown of
reflexive suspicion. She turned to look in the direction of the shout
and, still frowning, considered the area that she was pretty sure it had
come from.
Molly wasn't a hero, no, but curious she was.
Concerned too, yes, to a level. There was a warning in the form of a
phone call earlier to be careful, be wary, and all of these things she
was. She was just careful and wary and casual-soft in her steps as she
glanced up the street briefly, then started along the sidewalk to take
herself nearer to the home, ears straining for more sounds.
Jade
Jade
found herself a window full of shade, something she could lean against
and look into and peer around and- ah. Voices. Voices from the back,
hm. Whatever was (or was not, as the case may be) inside is not nearly
so interesting to the serpent as that voice. Those voices. Hm hm,
curious.
Quiet, so quiet. Nobody is an invisible shadow thing,
and Jade is not an invisible shadow thing. Not once she starts moving
along the side of the house, tip toe tip toe, which is at once both
easier and more difficult when a body is already elevated by a couple of
inches. Just two, Jade's sneaking shoes are sensible.
Anyway,
sneak sneak. Toward the backyard from whence the voices came. And if,
at the end of that lane there is a nice little patch of darkness? Jade
wraps herself in her cloak once more.
[dex+stealth? +WP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Kali
Kali
had wondered what had become of that woman who
Baja had had the sudden altercation with over a few interesting items.
She had hoped the woman had (not to put too fine a point on it) fucked
off back to Seattle or wherever it was, realized that getting her hand
hacked off was enough to know that Denver was not the best place for
her. So much for that.
Billy is a Malkavian. That means he's
crazy. But Kali never thought he was wrong. She knows things, and she
made some sense out of his ramplings. Sadly, not enough to get to him
in time, but hey, they're here now. That this woman is here as well
with her friend--well, that's just not good news at all.
"Hola, chica.
Long time no see." She's going to be making some assumptions here, but
they're educated guesses. Crazy gaunt chick who tried to kill her and
her clanmate once: Bad and doing bad things. Malkavian who was
apparently on the right track: ...well, not good, but they're vampires. Perspective. And so that's when the gun comes out, the heavy pistol
from her jacket. She's not aiming yet, but it's out to make the point
(and so she doesn't have to pull it when this does, inevitably, turn
bloody).
"Let's put our shovels down and step away from the hole.
I don't like people who wield shovels as a rule, and whatever is in
that hole, I don't want you anywhere near."
Nobody
So: Nobody is (hidden [right under your nose])
just inside the yard now, crouched; the language of beasts on his
tongue to call his companion and here comes Boots doesn't he rangy tom
cat mean tom cat king of tom cats a performance artist the tabbiest of
tabbies with his devil-angle face and his devil-rakish ears how many
fights more than he's got stripes that cat Boots he comes to Jack just
as Billy starts forward and
Jack has never seen this woman with
the trenchcoat; never once in his unlife. If there was a picture of the
Trinidadian man, perhaps he recalls it, considering what his other eyes
told him. Jack: He's eyes when he's not a voice and he's not a voice
now
oh but he is. He thinks he knows this story; this
moon-dragged, blood-eclipse shadow storything, three redheads and now
this, this, he thinks he knows this story; two shovels, one lantern, and
now a cat,
now another eye, eye of Kali's gun,
and he's a
lick of careful tension and he whispers in Boots' ears once the
devil-thing is at his side. Cats aren't real; somewhere there is a
Malkavian who knows that. Cats aren't real.
Verna Gardner
Verna sighs -- long, dejected. It is a Sigh. Look, she knows this place is bad. "Still, they shouldn't let it get in the way of doing their jobs," Verna says.
"I
was just trying to get --" Verna starts, cut off by that yelled
invective. She does look past Bo, at the house where the noise came
from. Crazy people. Fantastic.
"Okay. Okay, I guess... sure. Take a
look if you want," she says, though the woman's already doing so. Now
she's going to want to be paid probably. Perhaps a scam? Ugh.
Grave
[ Rojo ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )
Grave
[ Phipps ]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Kali
[[Per+Alert]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Grave
The
woman looks from Kali to Billy, and then over from Billy's eyes to the
shovel before her gaze moves back to Kali's gun where it's readied at
her side, and it's as if she is weighing her options. Her odds.
Wondering if this, whatever this is, is worth standing her ground for.
Meanwhile
those not paying attention to dangerous and varied flavors of undead
and ghouls wielding shovels over some pit being dug, even those paying
attention, they may notice a cat that is wandering down the driveway.
They won't notice a Jade, a serpent being very quiet as she slithers
through the weeds and coils into a new spot, a new vantage point, but
they will notice a cat. That cat sits and that cat does what cats do: It
stares at an empty space for far too long before sprinting off and it's
gone elsewhere.
It's Kali that the woman ends up staring down.
The man at her side is twitching and flexing his fingers around the
shovel, though it's not yet raised in the same manner as Billy's, and
it's Billy he is staring down. Waiting for a word from the mistress at
his side.
The woman suddenly stands up straight. She smiles before
she speaks back at Kali in perfect English, too perfect and too
measured in its cadence, thought out and devoid of contractions.
"I
already have a pit to bury you in, heretic," and she doesn't move a
step away from that hole. Her own hand goes into her trench coat and it
draws out a machete the size of her forearm.
"You are unworthy. You are pestilence and plague becomes you," bearing her teeth now with the curse.
Kali
[[Manip (Spec: Silver-Tongued) +Intimidation. WP on this one!]]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Grave
[ Specialty won't count on that one. Four successes. Willpower to resist at minus one difficulty for bearing modifier. ]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Kali
[[Wits+Awareness]]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Nobody
[Ditto.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Jade
[wits+aware!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Verna Gardner
[Wits 3 + Awareness 1 = Yes, she has a dot of Awareness...]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
[Wits 4 (Cool-Headed Specialty) + Awareness 1]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
Bo
Bo
was looking anyways and she seems to move a few things around and pull a
few rods out of random places before she puts it all back and strides
around the side to look into the car window once again. "Well I wish it
was easy news for you Goldie, but it looks like the transmission fluid
is just about at zero. Sooo unless you wanna turn your whole car into
one great big immovable art project. I'd leave it off." She says as she
looks back towards the home where the screams had come from.
"Also,
lock your doors and don't get out for anyone, especially not people who
look like they mean you no harm, those are really the worst." She said
with a wink as she turned to head towards the house, even taking several
steps in the direction before pausing, considering and then turning
half back to look at Verna.
"You...are ok right?"
Grave
With
her curse, with her spit condemnation and that bearing of duty and
zealotry however twisted that comes with it, comes the tingling of the
supernatural that so many of them have come to recognize. That otherness
being raised and manifested, even more so than the nightly risings of
their dead bodies, and they all know that something is coming from that
woman. That she is acting in some decisive way.
[ All who are in
the yard, rolled, and got any number of successes on the Awareness roll
may roll initiative. She's doing something. ]
Nobody
[Jack. Inits!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )
Nobody
[Er. +6]
Nobody
[Boots: +8.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Jade
[+5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Kali
[[BP to Dex, Init+7]]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Grave
[ Phipps + 7 ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Grave
[ Rojo + 5 ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Verna Gardner
Verna sits stock-straight, staring at that house, at the 'crazy people'. Something has her spooked.
Something, like that chill at the back of your neck, that fear in the dark that you try so hard not to pay attention to. It sets her teeth on edge.
"Yes...
thank you," Verna says to Bo, obviously distracted. She shakes her head
and her eyes shift to Bo's. "I'm fine. It's nothing."
Grave
[ Billy +6 ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Grave
Initiative: Boots 17, Billy 15, Jack 13, Phipps 9, Rojo 9, Kali 8, Jade 6
We declare in reverse.
Boots defers to Jack.
Billy charges Phipps to hit him with the shovel.
Jack's declare... ]
Nobody
Jack: Tells Boots to go for the woman's eyes and scratch her up.
Grave
[ Phipps parries the shovel. Clash of the Twitches begins.
Rojo: Using a discipline. ]
Kali
[[Aiming for a head shot on Rojo.]]
Jade
[I know she's at the end but let's go snake eyes (Serpentis: Eyes of the Serpent) on Rojo]
Grave
[ Billy hit Phipps ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 4 )
Grave
[ Phipps parry ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Nobody
[Jack: Wits + Stealth! Specialties: Right Under Your Nose, Right Before Your Eyes.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Grave
[ Damage is lethal for a rusty bladed shovel ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 4) ( fail )
Grave
[
Everyone can now notice Jack hissing and meowing and otherwise talking
kitty cat. I'll leave it to Jess to handle the prose flavor of that. ]
Grave
[ Oh, wait, no they can't. Specialty applied. ]
Nobody
[Boots: Dex + Cel + Brawl + 2 for Rear. +3 to Diff. + Brawl Specialty: Going For the Eyes.]
Dice: 11 d10 TN9 (1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7) ( fail )
Grave
[ Rojo ]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Kali
[[Sta, no Fort]]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Kali
[[Dex+FA, diff 8 for head shot. Specialty: Heavy Handguns. WP]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN8 (2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Kali
[[Damage]]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Grave
[ Soak ]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 7) ( success x 1 )
Grave
[ Three lethal to Rojo ]
Jade
[WP! C'MON JADE WHERE ARE THOSE MAD SUXX YOU HAD EARLIER EHHHH??]
Dice: 5 d10 TN9 (4, 4, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 1 )
Grave
A cat pounces from atop the overhang above the porch Billy had descended from and...
Comes
up short. Boot, brave Boots, had aimed for the woman's head with his
claws outstretched. The cat lands within the pit instead, a few feet
deep, with a squealing shriek that sounds like a baby screaming. It
comes up limping and scrambling anyway, sprinting in a tight circle
before it turns, raises its hackles, and hisses in anger and pain.
The
shovels slam against each other and Phipps manages to survive yet
unscathed by the giant (in comparison) Malkavian swinging for the fences
with that jagged edged shovel.
The woman speaks and the woman
wills plague and whatever it does to Kali is not enough to shake her
steady aim. The shot comes and it glances off the side of her face,
taking off fragments of jawbone, cheek flesh, her ear with the
hydroexplosive force of the bullet at is penetrates and clears the side
of her skill, vitae soaked hair trailing the pieces of her face that
follows it.
And she looks as if she is readying herself for
another curse, mouth hanging open, some shrieking banshee wail to rival
that of the wounded cat-ghoul. But it's then, from shadows like high
grass and weeds, a slender and delicate figure rises and flairs her hood
of darkness. Her eyes are black saucers and when the woman, the blood
witch, is drawn to her gaze she goes still. Is mesmerized. Is paralyzed
by the hypnotizing sight.
Phipps looks ready to keep defending her
against an enraged Billy and his shovel. (Or is he defending the pit?
The grave he was digging or digging up? It seems shaped like a person. A
long slender oval.)
[ Everyone who has not posted may now do so. ]
Bo
Bo
looks back, noting Verna's sudden displeasure and on edge stylings.
Seeing it brings a frown to her features for a brief moment before she
pops a smile and says.
"Seriously...I'd stay in the car Goldie."
But then there's a gun shot, and that brings Bo right back around her
eyes widening once more, frozen for a moment in uncertainty. Because she
knew the rapport of that particular piece, knew it well and she was
torn between what she'd been told to do, and what she wanted to do.
The
bond wins...this time, and Bo stays near the car watching Verna more
then anything, as if ensuring the woman doesn't go towards the sounds.
Molly Toombs
The
driveway to her right was cracked and crumbling, with weeds and
dandelions doing their best to poke up through the cracks (and their
best was a pretty good job, all things considered). Along with the
original shout Molly could now hear voices for her proximity-- multiple
people in this back yard, women and men alike. They sounded tense.
Confrontational. She wondered if she should call the cops, paused a
quarter of the way up the driveway as she was.
But then came that
feeling. The electric tickle of something charged in the air, brushing
soft and cottony over her skin, making her hairs raise up along her arms
and the back of her neck. She knew this sensation, had learned to
recognize it for her time chasing the otherworldly. It was like the
cold humidity that sank onto your bones when ghosts were going to beckon
and whisper and bodily throw. Like the gummy sticky sensation of grime
that wouldn't rub away that came from the back room of that antiques
shop. This was something Beyond Normal. That was for certain.
Unfortunate thing was, this meant it wouldn't be something for the cops.
Soon
after that sensation, that disturbance through the air that whispered
and tickled of the supernatural, came enough of a ruckus to draw all
eyes their way. Whang-whang, clang! The strikes of metal against
metal, shovels hitting and parrying. The screaming of a small child or
small animal, and then--
Blam!
--a firearm
discharged. Molly had startled, jumped, but didn't reel away from the
situation-- rather, she darted to the side of the driveway, like she
could hug the house wall and use that for shelter (unlikely, but not the
final destination). Silent, no words, no cursing out loud or talking
to herself. Something-- that itching-tickling caress of the
supernatural-- told her to look closer, to see what was going on.
Thankful
for her soft-soled shoes, Molly spied the gaps in the fence where
planks had broken and gone missing, and slipped forward to see.
[Dexterity 3 + Stealth 1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Bo
[Impatience!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Verna Gardner
Oh
no. No no no. Gunshots. Verna ducks behind the dash when she hears
that, and goes for her phone again. Goes to call 911, though, ha. This
is East Colfax. Any bets the police will actually show?
Ring...
Ring...
She peeks, because Verna's a brave one, and notices Bo sticking by her car. "Go! Get out of here!"
Why on earth, with gunshots echoing in the street, isn't this woman running away?
At least Verna has most of a car between herself and... whatever is
going on over there. There is a question of why she expects the other to
run or at least seek shelter, while she stays in the car. It's
something of human nature, isn't it? The car feels safe. It's an
enclosed space. It's hers.
Grave
[
Tentative initiative: Boots (hurt), Billy (still fighting Phipps), Jack,
Phipps (still fighting Billy), Rojo (can't act), Kali, Jade (must
maintain eye contact to continue mesmerizing Rojo).
How smart is Boots? ]
Dice: 3 d10 TN8 (2, 6, 7) ( fail )
Nobody
[Jack: +6]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Nobody
[Boots: +6 also.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Grave
[
Initiative: Boots, Billy (still fighting Phipps), Jack, Phipps (still
fighting Billy), Rojo (can't act unless attacked), Kali, Jade (must
maintain eye contact to continue mesmerizing Rojo). ]
Jade
[Jade continues to stare deep deep deep into Rojo's eyes O_O ss ss]
Kali
[[Run up shouting obscenities in Romani and shoot the woman in the head.]]
Grave
[
Roja (because I might as well start correcting myself now) is
mesmerized. Will spend a Willpower to act if disturbed. Too busy making
sexy eyes at Jade.
Phipps fighting Billy.
Jack declare... ]
Nobody
[Jack:
Ack, no Boots, stop! + this is a cluttered yard. Maybe there's
something nearby I should pick up in case I need to join this fight.
Acquire weapon!]
Grave
[ Billy fights Phipps. Boots pounces for BLOOD. ]
Nobody
[Boots: Cats do not fail! We are better than everything! Dex + Cel + Brawl + Specialty. -1 for Hurt. +3 Diff Again?]
Dice: 7 d10 TN9 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Nobody
[Damage. Strength + Potence + 2 (Eyes) + 4 suxx. (5 suxx on that brawl roll.)]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Nobody
{+1 claws}
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )
Nobody
[2 more dice...?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 5) ( fail )
Grave
[ Soak ]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 9) ( success x 1 )
Grave
[ Billy swings ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Grave
[ Phipps parries. ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Nobody
[Jack: Ack, no, not if she's not moving, Boots, then be a good kitty.
Wits + Stealth. Right Under Your Nose, Right Before Your Eyes. We will WP this.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN8 (2, 2, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grave
Roja
wipes a handful of her blood, shreds of her face still thick in the
sludgelike vitae, from her face and slaps Kali with her hand as she
advances.
[ Dexterity + Brawl - 2 for Wounded - 1 for Action + 1 difficulty for shaking off Mesmerize. ]
Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (1, 10) ( success x 1 )
Kali
[[Switching to Dodge]]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Kali
[[Abort! Switching to split between dodge and shoot. -2 to Dodge, WP]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Kali
[[Dex (Spec: Heavy Handguns) + FA, point blank = diff 4 + 2 for head shot. 2 dice]]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 10) ( success x 1 )
Kali
[[Damage]]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Grave
[ Soak ]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 3) ( fail )
Jade
[Look into my eyes, other dude, WP again ugh COME ON YOUC AN DO IT JADE UNF]
Dice: 5 d10 TN9 (1, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Grave
[
Roja is in torpor and Phipps is now mesmerized by Jade's beer goggles.
We're going cinematic from here on out. Post as you please after my
coming system post, including those who weren't able to post due to
combat. ]
Grave
Boots tears his way up the woman's
trench coat, scaling her needle-thin form, and when he lets his weight
drop it's with his claws hooked into her eyelids. Maybe the cat does
understand what Jade is doing. Maybe it just wants to get in one last
letting of blood in as payment for its embarrassing spill into the
grave. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a cat named Boots? Maybe
nobody.
The woman screams, but retains the presence of mind to
grab a handful of her face and vitae, lashing out at Kali (the superior
threat) with the scoop of poisoned vitae and Kali has the presence of
mind, despite the swirling infirmity striking her undead flesh, to get
out of the way and press her gun into the woman's shrieking (hanging
open) mouth. She pulls the trigger and blows a hole through her tongue
that comes out just to the left of her spinal cord. The woman slumps to
the ground in torpor, the puppet strings of her undead nature cut, and
lays still.
The sudden appearance of another enemy draws Phipps'
attention and with it his eyes. He locks them upon Jade and it is enough
for Billy, who had been fighting with such discipline and intensity
despite his improvised weapon, to sidestep and take one last swing.
Billy
has restraint. Billy is mad. Billy is not stupid. No one will call him
stupid after this. There's a certainty of his eyes and in his action as
the flat of the shovel clangs soundly off the back of Phipps' head and
the man-ghoul is knocked soundly asleep (unconscious).
And those
who have come closer to the pit that was being unearthed? The shallow
grave? They look down and they see what these fallen and besieged grave
robbers were standing their ground for.
In the ground, enshrouded
in roots that seem to have grown around her like an earthly veil, is a
woman with a broken leg of a chair buried within her chest. She looks to
have been there for quite some time, the roots so thick and ancient
looking, but the chair leg looks like something off a piece of knockoff
Ikea out of a big box retailer. Can't be more than a decade old.
Probably much less.
Past the roots, covering her in a manner that
seems almost meant to preserve her modesty, are shreds of decomposing
black satin and lace. A nighty. Lingerie.
The woman's stomach is
fat and though for a moment those who know of the dead and how they
decompose may think it's simply distended from those gasses, the shape
becomes unmistakable as they look closer.
The woman is pregnant.
Jade
[int+occult because maybe??]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )
Kali
[[Per+Alert to notice snoopage]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
Life
as a trauma E.R. nurse working the swing shift meant that Molly has
seen all different varieties of mangled and injured, damaged bodies that
you could think of. She's seen them come in dead, she's seen them come
in alive but too ruined to save, and she's seen them come in looking as
though they shouldn't pull through but after jamming tubes down their
throats and forcing simple functions to keep working (lungs-- breathe,
heart-- beat) they tasted a miracle and lived to walk out of the
hospital on their own.
So, when Molly finds that gap in the fence
to peek through and witnesses violence and gore-- gore for the bullets
that tore away the side of a face first, then burrowed through a mouth
and out the back second, she did go pale with horror and flee. She did
press her tongue flat to the roof of her mouth and swallow and cast her
eyes aside for a moment, though, just long enough that she had to glance
back to see when the blond-haired man with the shovel knocked his
opponent unconscious.
She didn't know the blond man. She didn't
know the dark-haired woman that had done nothing but stare. She knew
Kali, that vibrant woman was one of the numbers on business cards she
kept tucked away where no one would find or see. She knew her, but
didn't know her well enough to be comfortable or confident enough to
approach, no matter how curious she was about the hole that the cat had
hissed and leaped out of, curious to know what it was that people were
seeing when they peeked in and had their individual reactions.
Curious, but not stupid enough to step through the fence and approach.
Jade
[percept (detail-oriented? ahaha yeah right) + alert!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Molly Toombs
[Re-rolling Stealth! Dexterity 3 + Stealth 1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Grave
[ Boots ]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 6, 8) ( success x 3 )
Jade
[again!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Grave
There
is a creaking that breaks the sudden silence that falls after the heat
of battle even in such a populated urban environment. It is closer than
the backyard or front stoop drinking and laughing that persists despite
the gunshots.
It is closer than the occasional car that goes by.
It is closer then the voices coming from a certain car around the corner
where Bo waits and Verna is locked away (thinks she is safe) from such
dangers as occur here where there be dragons.
That creaking of
fence wood comes from Molly's direction and draws the attention of Kali
and Jade toward it. She is behind the fence, she is obscured, she is
only a sound, but she is a suspicious sound in such interesting times.
Boots
knows. Boots looks. Boots hisses angrily and looks in that same empty
direction at nobody (nothing in particular) and then begins stalking
toward Molly, still hissing and making angry violin screeches. Trying to
scare her off.
Kali
She's shouting--hell, she's practically screaming--in
Romani as she ran up and put the woman down. Anyone who knew the
language would probably have turned red with the veracity of her
language, but it isn't hard to figure out the general nature of the
shouts by violence and borderline shaking hatred in her tone. She's not
in danger of frenzy, but she was probably pretty close. The
always-composed Ravnos lost control more than most have seen her in this
city.
Once the woman is done, there is a moment where Kali very
nearly considers ripping her head off. But she holds off...perhaps
because she sees what's in the hole. And that takes her attention, the
gun still in her hand as her eyes take on a glassy look, her head
cocking to the right.
"The fuck?"
But there isn't much time
to deal with that, because someone registers on the edge of her
perceptions. And her attention snaps back to--
"Oh. Right." That's what she says when she sees Molly. It's sort of a that makes sense tone, but there's also a sudden edge to it. Apprehension.
"You
need to go. Right fucking now." she tells the nurse. The words could
be interpreted to be meant for the others as well, but she's directing
it at the kine. The frailer of those here. The tone actually indicates
concern and...a little fear, frankly. "Because I don't feel right."
Jade
Jade
hasn't moved much from where she started. That's the lovely thing
about being a snake, the body, the disciplines? So very suited to
staying in the dark and shady places. From there she stared down first
Rojo, but ah, Kali. Shot the woman down and down the woman went. So
Jade turned her attention to the man who was Rojo's counterpart, stared
him down, too. Held him place, pinned him with that golden-eyed stare.
Depending on her angle, chances are that's all Molly saw of that
strange dark-haired female dressed in clothing meant to keep her cloaked
in shadow.
For a little bit after the quiet settles, Jade takes a
moment to step further from the shadows, step to the edge of that hole
in the ground and see - ah. Well that is interesting, isn't it?
And then there is that creak.
She does not turn to look, Kali notices, that precious little tabby
notices. Jade? She sidles closer to the hole and drops to a crouch,
forearms resting on knees, looking, looking.
That's when she tips
her chin up, and she looks up up up at that Malkavian with the lovely
blond locks and the mad blue eyes. They're all a little mad, aren't
they? No, well. Not like the Malkavians are mad.
"Well, honey, what do you think? Is this what's going to bury everything?"
Nobody
Nobody is around.
Nobody
is always around. Nobody does not volunteer that information just yet.
Nobody's eyes are first on Kali, as Rojo drops, torpored. Billy, George,
Jade: also a glance. Nobody has that splinter of wood, long-stake of a
sliver pulled from a fence that nobody saw Nobody take and he does come
so close oh so close to that pit and looks down into the dirt at the
woman-creature and he gazes.
He gazes even so when Boots distracts
him but not completely. He is doing something, Nobody is, but who's
going to notice what Nobody does?
Nobody has a phone; Nobody takes
the phone out of his pocket. Texting doesn't make a sound, does it?
Nobody texts. The miracles of modern technology; maybe somebody,
Somebody, actually did set foot on the moon after all, and his doubts of
yestereve are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Jade's crouched on that side and Nobody's crouched on this side.
Think think think.
Verna Gardner
Verna
ducks behind the dash again as she waits to get on the line with the
dispatcher, and then she apparently does. At least, she's talking.
"Hello? Hello? Yes, I've just heard gunshots -- close gunshots. And a baby screaming, I'm sure it was a baby," Verna says. She's trying to urge them to do something, apparently. There's a pause.
"Um, yes, it's at East Colfax and Florence."
Well, they did have to know where to go, right? But she sounds quite sad when she says it. Like, sure. They'll send someone right over.
She
stays on the line, answering questions for a while after. Lets them
know that her car is broken down and she's in the middle of this gun battle, and maybe they get the idea that she's probably not from around Colfax street.
Bo
There
was a second the gunshot, and that probably more then anything drew Bo
to the yard, the simple fact that there was a second, did that mean Kali
had succeeded in defending herself? Or had she been overpowered when
she fired a second time? She had no desire to wait and longer Kali's
command be damned and so she rushed quickly and quietly around the side
of the house, looking for a way through.
Its likely here that she
runs into the scene, pressing through from the opposite side and either
running into Jade, or coming upon the pit rather suddenly.
"Holy hell in a pretty lacy handbasket." She said looking down into the pit.
Molly Toombs
She'd
shifted, and that was her mistake. A foot was going numb and she'd
shifted her weight, and this caused a creak in a wood plank that was
under her feet without her realizing it. She was touching the rickety
old fence with one hand, absent in doing so. When she'd moved her
weight she'd made noise, and then she went still with the cold water of oh shit trickling down her spine.
Then,
a rumbling of a low cat rumble of anger that would turn to a screech.
Soon following that, in a gap left by cat sounds and cat breaths, Kali's
voice rang from the other side of the fence. Warning her to go,
telling her to run, warning that she didn't feel quite right.
Molly
wasn't an idiot, she had a pretty good idea of what it meant when a
vampire was warning that they didn't feel well. She didn't want to be
around to offer up the thing that would make her feel better.
So,
all that they would see of Molly is a bit of red hair and pale freckled
face, but not all of it, as she peeked around the side of the fence to
get one last look at the scene. Another had arrived-- Bo, from another
side of the yard apparently. She and the woman dressed in dark clothing
were crouched around the pit, very intent on what they saw. The blond
man, he was there too, but Kali was a woman with a mean scream and a
meaner gun and Molly could only imagine what other mean things lay under
the surface.
Though she very much wanted to see, wanted to know, wanted to have that information because whatever this was it was important, the nurse heeded the Drug Lord's advise and made a brisk walk away from the fence, away from the house and the scene.
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