Miss Molly
With the weather as mild as it was during the daytime, some of that warmth was bound to bleed over into the night as well-- provided you got yourself out into the air early enough to beat the frost that would settle in during the teensiest hours of the morning.
We'll consider this somewhere just prior to midnight-- after all, night fell early upon the city in the winter, especially when there were great mountains to your West to help hasten the setting of the sun. No wonder Denver was such a hotspot for Vampires.
This Donut Shop in particular had been favored by this Nobody and Miss before they were as much. Back when they were "Jacky and Molly, or Miss Toombs (depending on who you asked)". Back when one of them still had a pulse and the other kept a particular mask in store for her because behind it was a Great Secret.
Well, that cat was out of the bag now.
Still, to the Donut Shop. There was good company there to be checked in with every so often, after all. Gregory had been hailed hastily, then Molly had shuffled herself into her favorite far corner where she could be ignored by the occasional warm body that roamed through the door. She looked like a homeless person here for a mercy coffee, covered in draping (but clean) skirts and a very large hoodie with the hood drawn up to mask her face in shadows. Sitting not slumped, but straight with her head bowed down to look at a coffee cup that she would barely pretend to drink at all.
This was "life" now. It had been for some time, though. Jack was talking with Gregory, some private business or another (and Molly respected privacy, having a strong need and respect for it herself now that she was the monster she was). Molly was fine to wait. Eternity and so on.
Nobody
[Which face have I got today?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Nobody
The Nobody Much of Jacks, the Jack of Nobodies, here he is, he is here, this 24-7 Donut Shop heart of an empire, tower and bastion against the onslaught of the bloody darkness; here is he, speaking to Gregory, Gregory, Gregory of the hot temper, who'd once quaffed blood laced with fury then went for a truer curse when that was snuffed out he doesn't want to wither away like a candle sped forward in a second like a curse like he's been released from fairyland made a mistake. That's one of the prices you pay: Molly has seen it. This is a face that Molly has seen before, nondescript ugly quash of a man with a crooked nose much-broke and a pair of twinkly blue eyes one of which is smaller than the other and musty orange cowlicky hair that doesn't know what it wants to be. Wiry body, wiry shoulders, all sinew and whip-crack bone-break slightness, this whippersnapper, might be in his mid-twenties might be older, it's so hard to tell with the: homeless. And he seems homeless in spite of his suit, or perhaps because of it: too nice too gentlemanly for the dusty ashness the rest of him is, worn down see. Worn down and tired creases, and that's just the Face. The Face he remembers, he stole, he took and taken kept and uses. Ugly face has a warm smile for Molly when the Jack of Nobodies in his finery leaves Gregory by the wayside and slides into the table opposite her, and if his eyes are sharp well Jacks have sharp eyes. Jacks are clever; it is a universal law.
"Good evening, Moll."
Miss Molly
Moll looked up when Jack sat down. Under the hood, in case it ever fell away or somebody caught a glimpse beneath, she wore her face wrapped up with bandages. Maybe she could play off as recovering from some kind of terrible domestic violence attack or something. She had to keep her hands hidden often, though. Even now, tucked away in her corner, she was sitting with them tucked away into the many folds of her violet skirt.
"Evening." Though much changed about Molly, her voice hadn't altered a note. It was as clear and cool and clever as the first time he'd heard it. More tired, more Aware, but the same woman. Recognizable, dangerously so, were the wrong ear to hear it. Thankfully she hailed from the coast and didn't have many friends in life.
Through the bandages eyes that were as clear and blue as her voice looked out upon Jacky. Her Sire. The reason she sat hidden away tonight, wrapped and covered as she was. Her heart lapped the honey of his voice, perhaps it would forever, and perhaps she would never ever know if it were for the blood alone or if it had ever been anything different.
That was a fairy tale bittersweet for another time's consideration, though. For now Molly practiced wearing masks by grinning-- little more than a movement under the bandages-- and speaking softly.
"I'm still amused by this face, Jacky. Or more, that you own it. You say you never planned to whisk me away to this--" a roll of her eyes about the donut shop to indicate her surroundings in lieu of the casual hand-wave that she may have made when they were less public. "--but you sure did seek me out, didn't you?"
Nobody
He gives her a flick-quick flash of a wing, pale lashes brushing low, when she says she is still amused by this face. This Face, this Face is a winking face; this Face does it easily, and it seems natural: maybe this Face once picked apples, stole candy from corner stores, looked longingly at other girls until they looked back and then the wink. The goodnatured wink, I see you. But the Face and Jack himself settles into a more somber reflection:
"I did. I would seek you out again: Can you tell me a version of your life, you, Molly, Molly who has lost her last name, can you tell me a version of your life where you are not called to wonder at what there is in the shadows; is there a version of your life where you'd rather ignorance? I would have kept you in the Kingdoms of the Day and the Courts of the Sun, but I think at some point...."
"Ah." He sounds sad. H does. "You were always skimming down into the dark, you are clever and determined and you have a knack."
"Does it please you to know you're in on the secret?"
Watchful, Jack.
Miss Molly
Was there a version of her life where she would have rather not known? Molly thought about that carefully. It was a question that she'd asked herself and considered many times over, even before she had the life drained from her under the earth somewhere. What would her life have been instead? Perhaps she would have become a doctor and eventually settled a family and had a little red-haired child or two.
Perhaps. But then she went and made promises to the Darkness and the closest thing she ever got to a child was better off having never known breath and sight at all.
His question was answered with a slow shake of her head. "No, I don't suppose that there would have been one..."
He's told her before that he would have rather not turned her. She knew that. Jack wasn't cruel, he didn't wish his visage upon her. But she was always skimming downward, downward. It was bound to happen sometime, no doubt.
But...
"Of course it does," she said. She didn't sound impatient or short with the answer, but it was an easy one to give. "That's what got me into all of this. I love secrets--or, more to the point, I love knowing them." She unfolded her hands from her dress and looked down at them. She had to knit her own gloves, so they were crude and had a couple of holes where pale skin peeked through, but they did the job and fit her abnormally long and spindly fingers well. In particular, she inspected a hole at the tip of her index finger where pink peeked through instead.
"Hearing that out loud, I guess I was headed this way already."
She paused, then asked without looking up:
"Would you have always had me so bound to you?"
Nobody
[Manipulation + Subterfuge. + Specialty. -2 Diff because Fully Bloodbound.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]
Miss Molly
[Perception 3 + Empathy 2: lololol]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Nobody
"No." He still sounds sad -- or rather, reflective; but definitive. A silver tongue, spoonfuls of honey for consumption; vampires drink only blood and live in the air but they feed on things besides somebody else's brush with death all the time. They feed on lies; on social jostling. They feed on it; it sustains them. And honey, a certain kind of honey.
"Not unless I was forced to, exhibit B what happened with You Know Who Miss Bluer-Blood-Than-Yours Nibs Herself. Or unless you asked me. There are certain protections being so closely tied will offer you; wards against the willful spells of warlocks, and aristocrats, and shadowmongers. Imperfect wards, but still: wards."
"We will part eventually, Molly. And when we do, perhaps we will be separate long enough that our bond dissolves like sugar in water. I will be here for you as long as I can, even after it does."
"Perhaps one night what's darkest in us will turn to light."
Miss Molly
"And you really believe that?"
He told her that he wouldn't have bound her so closely in his original plan, and that perhaps they would part one day and then the bond could be left to go away. She believed him, because she always did even if he did keep his vampirism a secret from her until that secret was ripped from beneath his feet like a rug. Or more, he was knocked off that secret by a screaming bus.
The last part she had trouble believing in concept, no matter how much he sounded convicted in it though. She looked back up at him with her question, peering from the deep shadows of her hood.
"That we're going to turn back to light? With what lives here?"
With this she raised a spidery finger and tapped it over her (still) ample bustline, to where her heart lay suspended and still.
Nobody
"Mm. I do believe it is possible. I must. I have seen humanity at its darkest; darker, even, than what lives here." He echoes her gesture; a hand over his heart. "I have seen our kindred, too, descendent rather than ascendent - terrible to bear witness to. But humanity strives; curses must be broken. I'm surprised the girl who went through the mirror questions what is possible. It won't be easy; it may not happen. But it can - call it Golconda, if you will, though I believe Golconda is only one face of a true transformation." He smiles, and This Face makes the smile rueful, crooked, lopsided. "Does it make sense that things can only get worse? Was the highest point of living the moment of birth?"
Miss Molly
Molly's eyes hopped elsewhere when he said it-- The Girl Who Went Through the Mirror. She worried about this from time to time. More specifically, she worried about how much she knew that Quincey Morris in particular was intrigued by this and called upon her for her particular talents and luck from time to time. Whatever alliance they may have in place, however shakey and made of spit and glue it may be, she could only sit and spin herself nightmares over what others may try and send her back through the mirror to do.
"No," she disagreed with his rhetoricals about happiness and shook her head. "Nobody knows the highest point of living until they're dead. We're only halfway there, so we only know the highest point of the first chapter. The Highest Point's an individual thing-- to some it's knowledge, to others it's ecstacy, to others still it's the biggest treasure trove to lay upon like a dragon."
Her hands had slipped back into her skirts again, and she considered the appearance of her modest paper coffee cup for a moment.
"Golconda... We don't have to be demons, Jack, but that doesn't mean that we aren't them. The verb and the noun.... You can change one, but..." She twisted her mouth ruefully, thoughfully, hesitant to speak on the subject perhaps but only so much could be seen through the shadows and those dull white strips of bandage wrapped in layers over her face.
"I had to give so much just to bring an existing consciousness back to an existing body. To completely change... to reanimate.... What could possibly be given for that? Besides what you're striving to turn to light already?"
Nobody
"Questions like that, my dear, is why it is not easy."
He rests his elbows on the table, hands dangling downward.
Miss Molly
"Which is perhaps why we haven't heard of anybody who's done it."
She cut this back to him quickly, like a tennis match that she was feeling competitive in. Her words were quiet but they were seldom soft. Easy and patient, perhaps, but certainly not apologetic or gentle.
"Anybody who tries becomes Something that can't come back to tell us. Which means if you ever find It? There's no coming back."
The way she was looking at him was hard to see with the covers she kept upon her face, but he knew the weight in her gaze. I can't come get you again.
Nobody
"Ah, clever Molly, that is faulty logic indeed. We haven't heard of anybody who's done it because it hasn't been done yet. There was a time before men set foot on the moon; do you doubt now they stood there?"
Miss Molly
Molly shook her head and sighed a little.
"We've existed for thousands upon thousands of years and you don't think that anybody else has tried to walk this path before? You think upon all those who have tried, none at all have succeeded? Where we will?"
She wanted to smirk to go along with the next statement, but it felt almost augural in her mouth so she didn't.
"We oughtn't be so arrogant, Jack."
Nobody
"Thousands upon thousands of years, and nobody walked on the Moon, Molly. Thousands upon thousands of years, and Rome wasn't even a twinkle in the eye of the woman who would one day be great great great grandmother of the first human being to look at the site Rome was built on. You must not let the weight of time depress your spirits or your goals."
This segues from (visionary [belief]) discussion of What Might Be to a much more pragmatic and sharp warning.
"Don't think yourself small, or ineffective."
Miss Molly
The fledgling vampire said nothing for a minute, but looked at Jack while he spoke until he cautioned her about her perception of self worth. That was where her eyes hopped back down to the tabletop and she murmered: "Easily said..." But left it there.
During the time that she was quiet she fiddled her fingertips together. Poked at the small holes here and there and hunted for threads she would be able to tug and arrange to mend them.
At last, she spoke with a change of subject, her tone sounding something like a report:
"There are two men I've met recently. One wants me to teach him about the Church. He doesn't seem to know much about the world around him. In exchange, there are books within his turf that I get access to. Perhaps they'll contain something useful that I can use....
"The second man, he may come seeking me." She frowned a little. "He might have the wrong impression about my alliance with Church, I'm afraid. He's... a brutal one."
Nobody
"You have reason to believe they are not men?" Jack asks. He is a Cautious Jack, a Jack of Stories, a Listening Jack. He is always a listener, no matter what the Face, or what the story he is (selling, sweet Con Man) telling.
"Please tell me about them both."
Miss Molly
Did she have reason to believe they were not men? She nodded her head. Affirmative.
When bade to tell him about them, Molly did as much. She was not the most eloquent woman, could not weave the tales that Jack of Stories was able to. However, she was dutiful and attentive, and so details and observations were provided bluntly instead of prettily.
"The first is named Gray. He's patroling turf along Colfax. He thought I was a shovelhead, and then pressed me for information about them in exchange for.. ah... not knocking my head off with a baseball bat. I think he's young, perhaps not much older than me, but I get the sense that he's on his own and not getting direction from anyone. He might be lost in figuring out his place on this side of unlife.
"The second goes by 'Thomas', and introduced himself to me as a Brujah. I met him by chance while out hunting, and he told me of this book shop he owns. I went to visit, and that night a couple of shovelheads came in-- sincerely, they showed up maybe two minutes after I got through the door. Thomas must be quite.... he's something. He tore them to shreds and had not a scratch on him. I slipped away, the way he was burning through himself I was afraid he might..." A shake of her head. "He told me to leave, probably had the same thought in mind. Said that he'd come find me."
She concluded with a rolling shrug of her shoulders from under the baggy black material of her sweater. "He's up for quite a task, though, trying to."
Nobody
"Hmm." To the word about Gray. "What neighborhood has he staked out as his own? I think I may remember seeing him at Elysium once."
He props his bristle-y chin on his fist as she talks about Thomas the Brujah. "You're young enough he might just be able to find you," Jack says. There's a reflective quality to his voice here. "Do you believe he's going to try and tear you apart? If not, you should go back to the bookshop before he starts looking. If he doesn't need to look, he'll not find anything you don't want him to. Unless, of course, you want the practice being difficult to trace."
Miss Molly
For Gray, she nodded and listed the address of the particular book shop she was speaking of. It was smack in the middle of the uncomfortably gritty stretch of street that East Colfax was.
"I don't know how much of the surrounding area he's claiming, but that's where I was when he came down upon me. From the rooftop, like he thinks this is a movie or something..."
She shook her head, then continued on. "I don't know about this Thomas. Perhaps I want to see if he can find me? I don't think he will tear me apart-- he wouldn't have held the door open for me to leave in the first place if that was his intention." A moment, a sigh. "Perhaps I should go to him instead..."
The coffee had gone cold by now, and though Molly didn't need to hunt Jack had his own business to attend to no doubt, and Molly was growing rather accustomed to her own silence for company. Perhaps not now, but soon enough they would stir from that booth. Maybe they would go together, maybe they would separate. One direction or the other, the night would consume them both though.
Nobody
Jack: does glance around. There's no one else here but Gregor, a lull between moments, between business, between: well, many cops frequent this shop, and street people, and perhaps some shady deals go down. It's one of those places.
When his eyes return to Molly, he says, "We are Nosferatu. We do not encourage people to find us, unless we are dangling ourselves before them, and allowing them to."
Sober. "There is too much at stake for our people. You should find him. Practice watching the place. If he's Brujah he shouldn't be able to see through what invisibility you are able to dredge up."
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Cooks and Insider Knowledges [Gray]
Miss Molly
At one in the morning there wasn't much going on along this particular stretch of street. The occasional car drove by, of course, as would be the case in all cities at any hour of the day, but foot traffic was virtually non-existant. People didn't like to take the chance of encountering one another, or any of the other anxiety-dreamed terror-fueled monstrosities that their imaginations may have cooked up.
The funny thing was, the actual monstrosity that was out on the street was far less harmful than the actual dangers that lurked (such as the shaky-jerky addicts that waited with sharp knives for the meek to walk past). The real Monster out on the Colfax sidewalk was hidden away from the eye, so as not to disturb the masses. The real Monster was fed, not hunting tonight.
Well, not hunting people at least.
One of many shops that lined this wicked street was a book store, one with many musty water-stained hand-me-down editions that smelled like mothballs and dust, as opposed to the chain stores that sold the same prints of everything and smelled like fresh press and coffee. Its windows were dark with dust and smoke from many years gone by (the shopkeeper smoked indoors for many decades before now) and faded old prints and posters for books that have come out over time. Out front there were two metal bookshelves with doors that closed and locked at night. The shelves were pushed up under the awning and against the storefront after closing time and left to be forgotten in the shadows.
Many things were often forgotten in the shadows, and that was why Molly had learned to like them so much. It was with shadows that she cloaked herself, encouraging the eye to be averted while she tinkered with the lock and pulled on the shelf to test how hard it would be to carry away vs. break in to.
Gray
East Colfax. Once upon a time, it was one of the worst streets in America, if not the worst. To suggest it's value has gone up since that reputation was lost, is a fallacy. The truth of the matter is, large portions of America have simply grown into worse conditions, leaving the 'fax behind to wallow in it's sub-optimal blight status.
The streets here don't have as much in the way of drug and gang traffic, because there isn't much in the way of to push. The surrounding landscape is a host of old construction sites and attempted gentrification. Along the outskirts and pushed in some, you could find trendy bars for hipster children of the mid-to-late eighties but beyond those pockets of 'threat-arousal' you got into territory that no one would think to go into because there just wasn't much there but graffiti, low-income housing and urban decay.
That is until you got to 5th and Board.
The four streets punching out in all directions from this one intersection seem to be clean. Debris and construction have been scaled back heavily and several empty lots line and dot the area just before the 'cleanliness' begins. One can notice the difference in the boarded up windows (no glass on the floor or sidewalk) and the run down cars (Stripped clean of all useful parts and pieces, their gastanks licked dry). Even the few shops and stores under what few lamps still work, are covered in enough security bars and heavy locks to make one second guess the income status of this particular area. Who the hell triple locks a used book store? Or steel door with a slide latch for eyeballing from safety, for that matter?
This particular corner. Barrel fires are distant but visible along the street. A single tenement building at the intersection's centre, is visible for it's lights throughout, a unique appearance to the rest of the buildnigs around which seem dark, dank or deserted.
Molly's picking the locks. Strung up in the sort of dark that comes with blood burnt for effect. She's also tampering with someplace she doesn't belong and somewhere just a little too prepared for vampiric intrusion.
The first padlock drops and with it, the thin string glued to the latch it was holding it place, unravels with the distribution of weight and sends a clatter of cans to the ground somewhere inside. The sound is magnified in the eerie silence of t the block, where no traffic disturbs the calm and no busy city noise occludes it.
Who the fuck attaches a string of cans to the first of three padlocks on a used book store protected by a steel security door?
Gray
(Perception 3 + Alertness 2: Diff 6 - 2 for Domain Security: Just to see his response time)
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Miss Molly
Molly Toombs never had reasons to pick locks. She didn't ever have reasons to snoop where locks would stop her, and if ever she did somebody else was there to pick the locks for her. There's a vast show of ignorance at play to find her fiddling around casually with a book shelf out in front of a rather locked up shop. She figured the locks were there because this part of town was trying to renovate among blocks of urban decay, and because the business owners were perhaps overzealous in their efforts to protect their shops.
Though nobody could see her (as far as she knew) to know this, she was quietly surprised and a little delighted with herself when the first padlock fell. She caught the lock in an outstretched hand to prevent the sound of it striking pavement, but a clatter arose anyways.
Molly startled, shoulders jerking up under her cloak of clothing and shadows both, and looked frantically around for half a second while trying to determine where the sound came from. Then it occurred to her-- inside, somewhere. Something attached to, associated with the lock no doubt.
But why cans? Why not an actual alarm system that would notify the police?
Oh, shit, she thought to herself. With the padlock still in hand, she began to slink back away from the storefront with her bloody little gift of stealth active still.
Gray
"...Normally, moment's like these make 'emselves clear.'
Voice like gravel. It is not particular deep, or layered like a growl might be, more just something rough, like the throat it belonged to was not used to so many words uttered at once. It arrives on the winds over Molly's head, the creature standing atop the storefront she had attempted to break into swathed in a long dark green wool coat. A simple t-shirt (white with black sleeves/shoulders and a pair of dark cargo pants complete the outfit, a pair of simple black boots finishing it up.
His hair is a wild nest of barely tamed roots, jutting in all directions and tamed backward by some miracle of growth. Maned, one might be tempted to call it. His features are grim, lit only by the moon and the vague ambient light coasting off the city.
One hand is on a knee, crooked with a foot settled on the ledge of the rooftop. The other is wrapped snugly around an intrusive and very obvious louisville slugger bat, gripped at the quarter point above the pommel. He is staring, unamused. Not particularly angry, mind you, but amusement yes. In short supply.
"Body comes into yo' hood uninvited, you put it in the ground or on the chain." The bat's business end, taps the roof ledge. "Ms. Crumsley run this shop for the kids here. Put some literate in their futures for free. I admire that...which makes you on the opposite end of my admiration right now."
There is a grunt that is more like a rumble.
"...And you lookin' dark. Black man in a cop car, dark. I seen that shit before. So you got ten words of freedom to prove you ain't a Shovelhead or I'ma come down there and take my time pulling you apart."
Miss Molly
When a voice sounded from overhead, Miss Molly went very still. She didn't know whether or not the speaker had a distance weapon of any kind trained on her, or if they were a hair-trigger waiting to pounce, so she was still and she listened. Listening was something she was incredibly good at.
It was only around the second sentence, about being put in the ground or on a chain, that Molly finally did lift her head and look upward to the roof. Down below Gray would find, visible to him through a wreath of shadowy skulkery, a figure that looked easy enough to dismiss as a homeless person swathed up from the cold. Layers upon layers of clothes, the most prominently visible of which were a long dark coat, a similarly long green skirt (whose hem dragged heavy on the ground) and a cavernous hood supplied from a sweater underneath the coat. The figure was female, presuming by the shape at least, and of average height. Nothing else could be gleaned, except that it was a gloved hand that reached up to hold the hood and shelter the face as she glanced skyward.
Couldn't get a good look at Gray without revealing her face, so for the time being she'd have to live with the fact that neither knew what the other looked like.
It took a couple of seconds, but not long enough to test Gray's patience for Molly to answer. When she did the voice that rang out from under the hood was clear and cool and calm and smart. Generally, precisely the opposite of what one would expect a bundle of rags skulking in shadows to sound like.
"Doesn't speaking ten words together stand as proof that I'm not a Shovelhead on its own?"
Gray
Thump
Not two feet separate, but a single landing sound as Grey simply steps off the roof and lands on the sidewalk. The padlock is plucked up from where it sits and he climbs back to his feet, free hand fitting the lock back into place with a clip of the latch and a
Snap of the cheap steel piece. Good as new, minus the cans inside but he'd probably take to those when he had decided how to handle the intruder.
"I've known all types. Three different newly dead, eager to shave their heads and eloquate at me 'bout my place under their boot heels. Most of 'em can't shut up long enough to breathe. Being dead made 'em all fuckin' shakespeare in the end."
The bat sldes through his grip, pommel striking the back of his pinky, a lazy rolling pendulum started while he regards the obscured figure in front of him.
"Ain't proved anything yet though, and you had your moment to bolt soon as I started talking. That's done now. Shovelhead or no, you on my turf. In my hood. Breaking into my Herd's living and causing my footwork to stop. That's a lot of strikes and you're cutting jokes." The bat in his hand squeaks under a sudden pressure of fingers.
Miss Molly
Again, the figure's shoulders jumped a little as though startled when the loud thump of boots on pavement announced that the one confronting her had dropped down from off the top of the building here he'd been before. She looked at him from under the shadowy shelter of her hood, analyzing his overall appearance but paying particular attention to the bat. She could imagine any number of skulls being cracked or smashed with it. Decided she would really hate if her own met a similar fate.
The bat squeaked and a rough threat was made. Molly's hands sprang up in front of her, palms forward in a clear signal of submission. Hey, guy, I don't want any trouble those hands said. He'd note that her fingers were much longer than they ought to be, alien and masked away under crudely knit mittens that clearly had to be specially crafted for such hands.
"Okay, okay," she conceded in a tone that begged for the situation not to escalate. "Look, I wasn't planning to take any cash or anything worth any particular value." He thankfully couldn't see her eyes shift under the hood, but she all the same added as a second thought. "I mean, I would replace the value even if I actually did..."
Not helping yourself there, Moll.
If he listened close he'd hear the sigh-- the intake of breath down wind pipes that didn't get much work anymore, and the exasperated blowing out of that air that followed. It was something of habit. It may belay her age since Death.
"I just... I don't know what you want me to do to prove anything to you."
Grey
"We're done past the proving line..."
Grimly spoken, the bat swinging round in a lazy arc, held clutched between fingers with the pommel serving as a fulcrum. He doesn't make bones or spades about approaching, moving with a casual and careful sort of step. His gaze pins her in place and his eyes seem less angry, upset or rage-inspired than they do annoyed. It's the voice though. She might well recognize it from...years ago? Was it years? Months?
A hospital scene. A tall dark man, come in after a gunshot victim. Pushing his way through the doors and dragging her along like she was a sac of feathers. A quiet walk down the street, 'escorting her home' (or using her to escort himself back to a comfortable area). It wasn't the sort of thing that spoke volumes of memory but mayhaps a bit of the offness about that exchange ages ago, would come to mind in her new state. Make sense of that evening just a little bit more than it had when she was...more human.
"You come into my hood. Onto my turf. Lucky you didn't run into any of the boys who call this place home. Mighta dropped lead into you for tampering with the locks. Mighta had to get busy with some of them yourself and then you and I wouldn't be talking now." A pause. In both movement and words.
"It's a good sign you and I are talking right now." An assurance. As if maybe she didn't know.
"...Why you want the books?"
Miss Molly
He couldn't see through the shadows under her hood. As a Nosferatu, she's gained practice in where she should be holding her head and how far forward that hood has to remain in order for the shroud of shadows in the night to mask her visage effectively. Still, though he couldn't see them, he could feel her eyes intensely upon him. Studying, striving, combing memory from years (was it years plural?) ago to try and place the familiarity.
Much has happened since then. He had no chance, no hopes of recognizing her. The voice was the same, but he had no reason to hook the voice to the figure before him, not without the face and body to match to what he might recall. Still, somewhere around the mention of how she could've been shot up if she was caught by the wrong person, the light bulb flicked on.
Why do you want the books, he asked?
"It's yo--," she started, and the cadence and wonder and revelation in her voice spoke clearly that she wasn't thinking about the books at all. However, his question processed halfway through her exclamation of It's you, and she cut herself off to silence.
After a few moments of careful consideration, she explained herself:
"I'm a student of the occult, so to speak. A studier, a collector a historian, whatever you wantt o call it. I'd heard whispers that this bookshop came into possession of a couple of transcripts that I'd just... love to have a couple of hours with."
Grey
If he notices her exclamation and self-interruption, Grey doesn't give any indication. Merely waits for her to finish what she has to say and collect herself accordingly. When she's done there is the subtle shift of weight, from one foot to the other, the bat swinging low to handle between two pinching fingers. His other hand vanishes into a jacket pocket, the sharp tines of his hair ruffled by an invasive wind coming in from the north.
"...And you made no bones about coming into poor hoods, with your wants and thinking ain't nobody notice, so it'll be just fine..." A 'tsk' clucks off his tongue, the flash of white teeth easily visible in the night-darkened street. The street lamps around here were few and far between, only a couple per block working to provide any illumination, most of the others having been smashed out. The city had yet to come down to repair any of them, probably because they'd been replaced before and been smashed out again. It made the 'hood uninviting and mugger friendly. Easy prey and hunting grounds that.
"You know some shit then..." A statement. She was a historian afterall. "So you know what I mean when I say 'Shovelhead'..."
Miss Molly
"What?"
The entity sounded distracted, but more than that confused by the question. Like he had, apropos of nothing, asked her if she could recite the alphabet backwards. The hood crumpled to show that her head had tipped quizically to the side at first, and then moved to show that she was shaking her head instead.
"Of course. I mean, I only just had a run-in with a couple of them a few days ago, I would hope that I know what they are."
Her elbows tucked nearer to her body, hands twisted around loose twines and ends in her coat pockets. She shifted her weight around subtly under her shelter of clothing layers, wanting to be elsewhere, to escape the scrutiny of being caught, to stop being watched, to go back where she didn't need to worry so much about hiding her face or seeing reactions if it was glimpsed.
"Maybe...," she started, hesitated, then decided why not and to try again. "Maybe you have some questions? I could try to help if you could perhaps.... look the other way tonight, and then again tomorrow night when the books leave and return again unharmed?"
Miss Molly
"What?"
The entity sounded distracted, but more than that confused by the question. Like he had, apropos of nothing, asked her if she could recite the alphabet backwards. The hood crumpled to show that her head had tipped quizically to the side at first, and then moved to show that she was shaking her head instead.
"Of course. I mean, I only just had a run-in with a couple of them a few days ago, I would hope that I know what they are."
Her elbows tucked nearer to her body, hands twisted around loose twines and ends in her coat pockets. She shifted her weight around subtly under her shelter of clothing layers, wanting to be elsewhere, to escape the scrutiny of being caught, to stop being watched, to go back where she didn't need to worry so much about hiding her face or seeing reactions if it was glimpsed.
"Maybe...," she started, hesitated, then decided why not and to try again. "Maybe you have some questions? I could try to help if you could perhaps.... look the other way tonight, and then again tomorrow night when the books leave and return again unharmed?"
Grey
"You making deals?"
Incredulous. Humoured. Borderline angry. All at once. It was a unique sound that escaped him, a snort that wanted to be a laugh and a growl all at once. The bat becomes a firm thing in his grip again, another step, this one heavier, taken toward her. A threat in reflex.
"Cause this ain't a time for deals. If one's going to be made, it's to make sure you get to walk out of here with both legs and a throat, girl. That's your bargaining chip right now."
There's a pause, that scrutiny scanning her over a moment. Then-
"Tell me what you know 'bout where they come from? Why they do what they do?"
Miss Molly
The combined sound that he made, adjusted grip on his bat, and heavy step forward had Miss Molly tightening up under her baggy shroud of clothes. All he'd see is that her shoulders squared some and a large chest under the coat pushed out further when she straightened up. Stiff-spined, still of breath (though that was just the way things were now), and still of body as well.
She said nothing. He wasn't going to give her anything but her ability to 'live' another night if she was lucky. But he did want to know what Shovelheads wanted and where they came from.
"They come from the same place any of us do. They're embraced, but the process is different and fucked up. Full of abandonment and war. They're created hastily, sloppily, and out of cruelty-- shock troops for war usually. As for why they do what they do...."
She paused, sighed quietly and unnecessarily. "They're driven a bit mad through the process. They just want War and Mayhem and Hurt. It's how they're made."
There was another hesitation, and her posture relaxed just a little bit-- shoulders rounding down only so under the coat. "I didn't realize people didn't know that." This was spoken softly, quietly, like a realization.
Grey
"People probably do. I don't."
No bones about his ignorance. No bones about being ignorant. He seems comfortable with that fact and her re-telling of how a Shovelhead was made. How they were just like both of them only...less, somehow. Fodder born to hate and harm. It was like it settled something in his mind. A firmness that didn't have anything neat or tidy to say. A confirmation of his own thoughts, or a correction. Either was valid.
"So they run 'round plucking randoms off the street or out of their homes? Pull from the homeless? Drug addicts? They stick to those who ain't gonna be missed or do they go for anyone in reach?"
Miss Molly
"I don't know? I presume the rhyme or reason that exist sways from command to command-- whoever sets out to make these gangs does so with their own minds and resources."
He showed no shame in his ignorance, and Molly wore her library of knowledge like it were obvious as a pocket protector and horn-rimmed glasses would be.
"The Sabbat is not well-renowned for consistency or transparency."
Grey
"Which makes 'em disorganized at a street level. Mobs not armies."
Grey's assessment is another firm thing. Another bit of confirmation that's got him nodding. He's pacing now and the weight of his scrutiny vanishes with it, as if his eyes were a headlamp that turned to illuminate elsewhere. His steps are measured, boots finding gravel here or there to crunch underfoot. The bat is gripped again, a quarter up the shaft. A poke-grip (poke the chest or head to off-balance the victim. Slide down to the pommel for a full-swing in the poke-retract. One fluid in and out motion.).
"Angry, Nuts 'n Pushed to it, makes a mob sloppy. Makes 'em easy to herd."
His attention turns, regarding the street they're on- No. The block they are on. He follows the barrel fires in the distance, the strange cleanliness of his territory. The tenement building which is the only structure for some distance in all directions still standing tall and well-lit in this neighbourhood.
"...What do you know about the Sabbat in the city? Where they located? Where they put their throne?"
Miss Molly
The entity that was Miss Molly finally moved from where she had been standing. Took one slow and smooth-quiet step backward, followed by a second. Her skirt dragged quietly on the sidewalk as she did. Her hands came from her pockets and one raised in front of her, palm forward, as she shook her head.
"I don't know that much, Gray. They don't exactly invite kids like me to their sermons."
This followed by a small pause.
"Can I go?"
Grey
"...Conditions."
He raises his hand. The free one, that isn't wrapped up in baseball bats. A single finger is raised on that hand.
"You come back here, you announce yourself. You find me first and don't go spooking 'round."
A second finger joins the first.
"You make sure no one sees you. I don't need my herd and my turf collective, wandering their mouths off about some odd little skirt in shadows or getting spooked themselves, thinking you some first step in a new Shovelhead invasion."
And a third finger of course.
"You come back with new information that I can use."
The hand finally drops, Grey's eyes firmly mincing the landscape of the his neighbourhood.
"You do all those, I'll see 'bout your books."
And that. Seemed like that. He didn't move but he didn't offer anything more than that. Lost in thought would be the best marker for it.
Miss Molly
Conditions were provided, and Molly listened carefully while they were laid out. When he finished laying them out and ended on the note that he may even be able to let her get a glance at those books she was after, she nodded enough that the hood would bob visibly.
"I think I can make something like that happen," she said in that clear, cool voice, sounding rather pleased with the terms. She didn't sound stupid. She probably realized she was getting off good without having her head and shoulders beaten with that bat.
Truth be told, she'd realized she used a name that he gave to her two and a half years ago when she was a different person entirely, and was elated with the fact that he was too wrapped up in these revalations about Shovelheads to have noticed.
"I'll come find you sometime, then, announced and unseen both."
He can't see the grin there, but it's bitter and toothy and lurking in the shadows as it tasted the irony in being announced and unnoticed at the same time.
"Goodnight. And happy hunting." And though he could still see her well, for this was His Turf, he knew that she pulled the shadows around her and melded in with them once again. They would escort her to the nearest nook cranny alley to vanish away into.
At one in the morning there wasn't much going on along this particular stretch of street. The occasional car drove by, of course, as would be the case in all cities at any hour of the day, but foot traffic was virtually non-existant. People didn't like to take the chance of encountering one another, or any of the other anxiety-dreamed terror-fueled monstrosities that their imaginations may have cooked up.
The funny thing was, the actual monstrosity that was out on the street was far less harmful than the actual dangers that lurked (such as the shaky-jerky addicts that waited with sharp knives for the meek to walk past). The real Monster out on the Colfax sidewalk was hidden away from the eye, so as not to disturb the masses. The real Monster was fed, not hunting tonight.
Well, not hunting people at least.
One of many shops that lined this wicked street was a book store, one with many musty water-stained hand-me-down editions that smelled like mothballs and dust, as opposed to the chain stores that sold the same prints of everything and smelled like fresh press and coffee. Its windows were dark with dust and smoke from many years gone by (the shopkeeper smoked indoors for many decades before now) and faded old prints and posters for books that have come out over time. Out front there were two metal bookshelves with doors that closed and locked at night. The shelves were pushed up under the awning and against the storefront after closing time and left to be forgotten in the shadows.
Many things were often forgotten in the shadows, and that was why Molly had learned to like them so much. It was with shadows that she cloaked herself, encouraging the eye to be averted while she tinkered with the lock and pulled on the shelf to test how hard it would be to carry away vs. break in to.
Gray
East Colfax. Once upon a time, it was one of the worst streets in America, if not the worst. To suggest it's value has gone up since that reputation was lost, is a fallacy. The truth of the matter is, large portions of America have simply grown into worse conditions, leaving the 'fax behind to wallow in it's sub-optimal blight status.
The streets here don't have as much in the way of drug and gang traffic, because there isn't much in the way of to push. The surrounding landscape is a host of old construction sites and attempted gentrification. Along the outskirts and pushed in some, you could find trendy bars for hipster children of the mid-to-late eighties but beyond those pockets of 'threat-arousal' you got into territory that no one would think to go into because there just wasn't much there but graffiti, low-income housing and urban decay.
That is until you got to 5th and Board.
The four streets punching out in all directions from this one intersection seem to be clean. Debris and construction have been scaled back heavily and several empty lots line and dot the area just before the 'cleanliness' begins. One can notice the difference in the boarded up windows (no glass on the floor or sidewalk) and the run down cars (Stripped clean of all useful parts and pieces, their gastanks licked dry). Even the few shops and stores under what few lamps still work, are covered in enough security bars and heavy locks to make one second guess the income status of this particular area. Who the hell triple locks a used book store? Or steel door with a slide latch for eyeballing from safety, for that matter?
This particular corner. Barrel fires are distant but visible along the street. A single tenement building at the intersection's centre, is visible for it's lights throughout, a unique appearance to the rest of the buildnigs around which seem dark, dank or deserted.
Molly's picking the locks. Strung up in the sort of dark that comes with blood burnt for effect. She's also tampering with someplace she doesn't belong and somewhere just a little too prepared for vampiric intrusion.
The first padlock drops and with it, the thin string glued to the latch it was holding it place, unravels with the distribution of weight and sends a clatter of cans to the ground somewhere inside. The sound is magnified in the eerie silence of t the block, where no traffic disturbs the calm and no busy city noise occludes it.
Who the fuck attaches a string of cans to the first of three padlocks on a used book store protected by a steel security door?
Gray
(Perception 3 + Alertness 2: Diff 6 - 2 for Domain Security: Just to see his response time)
Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (1, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Miss Molly
Molly Toombs never had reasons to pick locks. She didn't ever have reasons to snoop where locks would stop her, and if ever she did somebody else was there to pick the locks for her. There's a vast show of ignorance at play to find her fiddling around casually with a book shelf out in front of a rather locked up shop. She figured the locks were there because this part of town was trying to renovate among blocks of urban decay, and because the business owners were perhaps overzealous in their efforts to protect their shops.
Though nobody could see her (as far as she knew) to know this, she was quietly surprised and a little delighted with herself when the first padlock fell. She caught the lock in an outstretched hand to prevent the sound of it striking pavement, but a clatter arose anyways.
Molly startled, shoulders jerking up under her cloak of clothing and shadows both, and looked frantically around for half a second while trying to determine where the sound came from. Then it occurred to her-- inside, somewhere. Something attached to, associated with the lock no doubt.
But why cans? Why not an actual alarm system that would notify the police?
Oh, shit, she thought to herself. With the padlock still in hand, she began to slink back away from the storefront with her bloody little gift of stealth active still.
Gray
"...Normally, moment's like these make 'emselves clear.'
Voice like gravel. It is not particular deep, or layered like a growl might be, more just something rough, like the throat it belonged to was not used to so many words uttered at once. It arrives on the winds over Molly's head, the creature standing atop the storefront she had attempted to break into swathed in a long dark green wool coat. A simple t-shirt (white with black sleeves/shoulders and a pair of dark cargo pants complete the outfit, a pair of simple black boots finishing it up.
His hair is a wild nest of barely tamed roots, jutting in all directions and tamed backward by some miracle of growth. Maned, one might be tempted to call it. His features are grim, lit only by the moon and the vague ambient light coasting off the city.
One hand is on a knee, crooked with a foot settled on the ledge of the rooftop. The other is wrapped snugly around an intrusive and very obvious louisville slugger bat, gripped at the quarter point above the pommel. He is staring, unamused. Not particularly angry, mind you, but amusement yes. In short supply.
"Body comes into yo' hood uninvited, you put it in the ground or on the chain." The bat's business end, taps the roof ledge. "Ms. Crumsley run this shop for the kids here. Put some literate in their futures for free. I admire that...which makes you on the opposite end of my admiration right now."
There is a grunt that is more like a rumble.
"...And you lookin' dark. Black man in a cop car, dark. I seen that shit before. So you got ten words of freedom to prove you ain't a Shovelhead or I'ma come down there and take my time pulling you apart."
Miss Molly
When a voice sounded from overhead, Miss Molly went very still. She didn't know whether or not the speaker had a distance weapon of any kind trained on her, or if they were a hair-trigger waiting to pounce, so she was still and she listened. Listening was something she was incredibly good at.
It was only around the second sentence, about being put in the ground or on a chain, that Molly finally did lift her head and look upward to the roof. Down below Gray would find, visible to him through a wreath of shadowy skulkery, a figure that looked easy enough to dismiss as a homeless person swathed up from the cold. Layers upon layers of clothes, the most prominently visible of which were a long dark coat, a similarly long green skirt (whose hem dragged heavy on the ground) and a cavernous hood supplied from a sweater underneath the coat. The figure was female, presuming by the shape at least, and of average height. Nothing else could be gleaned, except that it was a gloved hand that reached up to hold the hood and shelter the face as she glanced skyward.
Couldn't get a good look at Gray without revealing her face, so for the time being she'd have to live with the fact that neither knew what the other looked like.
It took a couple of seconds, but not long enough to test Gray's patience for Molly to answer. When she did the voice that rang out from under the hood was clear and cool and calm and smart. Generally, precisely the opposite of what one would expect a bundle of rags skulking in shadows to sound like.
"Doesn't speaking ten words together stand as proof that I'm not a Shovelhead on its own?"
Gray
Thump
Not two feet separate, but a single landing sound as Grey simply steps off the roof and lands on the sidewalk. The padlock is plucked up from where it sits and he climbs back to his feet, free hand fitting the lock back into place with a clip of the latch and a
Snap of the cheap steel piece. Good as new, minus the cans inside but he'd probably take to those when he had decided how to handle the intruder.
"I've known all types. Three different newly dead, eager to shave their heads and eloquate at me 'bout my place under their boot heels. Most of 'em can't shut up long enough to breathe. Being dead made 'em all fuckin' shakespeare in the end."
The bat sldes through his grip, pommel striking the back of his pinky, a lazy rolling pendulum started while he regards the obscured figure in front of him.
"Ain't proved anything yet though, and you had your moment to bolt soon as I started talking. That's done now. Shovelhead or no, you on my turf. In my hood. Breaking into my Herd's living and causing my footwork to stop. That's a lot of strikes and you're cutting jokes." The bat in his hand squeaks under a sudden pressure of fingers.
Miss Molly
Again, the figure's shoulders jumped a little as though startled when the loud thump of boots on pavement announced that the one confronting her had dropped down from off the top of the building here he'd been before. She looked at him from under the shadowy shelter of her hood, analyzing his overall appearance but paying particular attention to the bat. She could imagine any number of skulls being cracked or smashed with it. Decided she would really hate if her own met a similar fate.
The bat squeaked and a rough threat was made. Molly's hands sprang up in front of her, palms forward in a clear signal of submission. Hey, guy, I don't want any trouble those hands said. He'd note that her fingers were much longer than they ought to be, alien and masked away under crudely knit mittens that clearly had to be specially crafted for such hands.
"Okay, okay," she conceded in a tone that begged for the situation not to escalate. "Look, I wasn't planning to take any cash or anything worth any particular value." He thankfully couldn't see her eyes shift under the hood, but she all the same added as a second thought. "I mean, I would replace the value even if I actually did..."
Not helping yourself there, Moll.
If he listened close he'd hear the sigh-- the intake of breath down wind pipes that didn't get much work anymore, and the exasperated blowing out of that air that followed. It was something of habit. It may belay her age since Death.
"I just... I don't know what you want me to do to prove anything to you."
Grey
"We're done past the proving line..."
Grimly spoken, the bat swinging round in a lazy arc, held clutched between fingers with the pommel serving as a fulcrum. He doesn't make bones or spades about approaching, moving with a casual and careful sort of step. His gaze pins her in place and his eyes seem less angry, upset or rage-inspired than they do annoyed. It's the voice though. She might well recognize it from...years ago? Was it years? Months?
A hospital scene. A tall dark man, come in after a gunshot victim. Pushing his way through the doors and dragging her along like she was a sac of feathers. A quiet walk down the street, 'escorting her home' (or using her to escort himself back to a comfortable area). It wasn't the sort of thing that spoke volumes of memory but mayhaps a bit of the offness about that exchange ages ago, would come to mind in her new state. Make sense of that evening just a little bit more than it had when she was...more human.
"You come into my hood. Onto my turf. Lucky you didn't run into any of the boys who call this place home. Mighta dropped lead into you for tampering with the locks. Mighta had to get busy with some of them yourself and then you and I wouldn't be talking now." A pause. In both movement and words.
"It's a good sign you and I are talking right now." An assurance. As if maybe she didn't know.
"...Why you want the books?"
Miss Molly
He couldn't see through the shadows under her hood. As a Nosferatu, she's gained practice in where she should be holding her head and how far forward that hood has to remain in order for the shroud of shadows in the night to mask her visage effectively. Still, though he couldn't see them, he could feel her eyes intensely upon him. Studying, striving, combing memory from years (was it years plural?) ago to try and place the familiarity.
Much has happened since then. He had no chance, no hopes of recognizing her. The voice was the same, but he had no reason to hook the voice to the figure before him, not without the face and body to match to what he might recall. Still, somewhere around the mention of how she could've been shot up if she was caught by the wrong person, the light bulb flicked on.
Why do you want the books, he asked?
"It's yo--," she started, and the cadence and wonder and revelation in her voice spoke clearly that she wasn't thinking about the books at all. However, his question processed halfway through her exclamation of It's you, and she cut herself off to silence.
After a few moments of careful consideration, she explained herself:
"I'm a student of the occult, so to speak. A studier, a collector a historian, whatever you wantt o call it. I'd heard whispers that this bookshop came into possession of a couple of transcripts that I'd just... love to have a couple of hours with."
Grey
If he notices her exclamation and self-interruption, Grey doesn't give any indication. Merely waits for her to finish what she has to say and collect herself accordingly. When she's done there is the subtle shift of weight, from one foot to the other, the bat swinging low to handle between two pinching fingers. His other hand vanishes into a jacket pocket, the sharp tines of his hair ruffled by an invasive wind coming in from the north.
"...And you made no bones about coming into poor hoods, with your wants and thinking ain't nobody notice, so it'll be just fine..." A 'tsk' clucks off his tongue, the flash of white teeth easily visible in the night-darkened street. The street lamps around here were few and far between, only a couple per block working to provide any illumination, most of the others having been smashed out. The city had yet to come down to repair any of them, probably because they'd been replaced before and been smashed out again. It made the 'hood uninviting and mugger friendly. Easy prey and hunting grounds that.
"You know some shit then..." A statement. She was a historian afterall. "So you know what I mean when I say 'Shovelhead'..."
Miss Molly
"What?"
The entity sounded distracted, but more than that confused by the question. Like he had, apropos of nothing, asked her if she could recite the alphabet backwards. The hood crumpled to show that her head had tipped quizically to the side at first, and then moved to show that she was shaking her head instead.
"Of course. I mean, I only just had a run-in with a couple of them a few days ago, I would hope that I know what they are."
Her elbows tucked nearer to her body, hands twisted around loose twines and ends in her coat pockets. She shifted her weight around subtly under her shelter of clothing layers, wanting to be elsewhere, to escape the scrutiny of being caught, to stop being watched, to go back where she didn't need to worry so much about hiding her face or seeing reactions if it was glimpsed.
"Maybe...," she started, hesitated, then decided why not and to try again. "Maybe you have some questions? I could try to help if you could perhaps.... look the other way tonight, and then again tomorrow night when the books leave and return again unharmed?"
Miss Molly
"What?"
The entity sounded distracted, but more than that confused by the question. Like he had, apropos of nothing, asked her if she could recite the alphabet backwards. The hood crumpled to show that her head had tipped quizically to the side at first, and then moved to show that she was shaking her head instead.
"Of course. I mean, I only just had a run-in with a couple of them a few days ago, I would hope that I know what they are."
Her elbows tucked nearer to her body, hands twisted around loose twines and ends in her coat pockets. She shifted her weight around subtly under her shelter of clothing layers, wanting to be elsewhere, to escape the scrutiny of being caught, to stop being watched, to go back where she didn't need to worry so much about hiding her face or seeing reactions if it was glimpsed.
"Maybe...," she started, hesitated, then decided why not and to try again. "Maybe you have some questions? I could try to help if you could perhaps.... look the other way tonight, and then again tomorrow night when the books leave and return again unharmed?"
Grey
"You making deals?"
Incredulous. Humoured. Borderline angry. All at once. It was a unique sound that escaped him, a snort that wanted to be a laugh and a growl all at once. The bat becomes a firm thing in his grip again, another step, this one heavier, taken toward her. A threat in reflex.
"Cause this ain't a time for deals. If one's going to be made, it's to make sure you get to walk out of here with both legs and a throat, girl. That's your bargaining chip right now."
There's a pause, that scrutiny scanning her over a moment. Then-
"Tell me what you know 'bout where they come from? Why they do what they do?"
Miss Molly
The combined sound that he made, adjusted grip on his bat, and heavy step forward had Miss Molly tightening up under her baggy shroud of clothes. All he'd see is that her shoulders squared some and a large chest under the coat pushed out further when she straightened up. Stiff-spined, still of breath (though that was just the way things were now), and still of body as well.
She said nothing. He wasn't going to give her anything but her ability to 'live' another night if she was lucky. But he did want to know what Shovelheads wanted and where they came from.
"They come from the same place any of us do. They're embraced, but the process is different and fucked up. Full of abandonment and war. They're created hastily, sloppily, and out of cruelty-- shock troops for war usually. As for why they do what they do...."
She paused, sighed quietly and unnecessarily. "They're driven a bit mad through the process. They just want War and Mayhem and Hurt. It's how they're made."
There was another hesitation, and her posture relaxed just a little bit-- shoulders rounding down only so under the coat. "I didn't realize people didn't know that." This was spoken softly, quietly, like a realization.
Grey
"People probably do. I don't."
No bones about his ignorance. No bones about being ignorant. He seems comfortable with that fact and her re-telling of how a Shovelhead was made. How they were just like both of them only...less, somehow. Fodder born to hate and harm. It was like it settled something in his mind. A firmness that didn't have anything neat or tidy to say. A confirmation of his own thoughts, or a correction. Either was valid.
"So they run 'round plucking randoms off the street or out of their homes? Pull from the homeless? Drug addicts? They stick to those who ain't gonna be missed or do they go for anyone in reach?"
Miss Molly
"I don't know? I presume the rhyme or reason that exist sways from command to command-- whoever sets out to make these gangs does so with their own minds and resources."
He showed no shame in his ignorance, and Molly wore her library of knowledge like it were obvious as a pocket protector and horn-rimmed glasses would be.
"The Sabbat is not well-renowned for consistency or transparency."
Grey
"Which makes 'em disorganized at a street level. Mobs not armies."
Grey's assessment is another firm thing. Another bit of confirmation that's got him nodding. He's pacing now and the weight of his scrutiny vanishes with it, as if his eyes were a headlamp that turned to illuminate elsewhere. His steps are measured, boots finding gravel here or there to crunch underfoot. The bat is gripped again, a quarter up the shaft. A poke-grip (poke the chest or head to off-balance the victim. Slide down to the pommel for a full-swing in the poke-retract. One fluid in and out motion.).
"Angry, Nuts 'n Pushed to it, makes a mob sloppy. Makes 'em easy to herd."
His attention turns, regarding the street they're on- No. The block they are on. He follows the barrel fires in the distance, the strange cleanliness of his territory. The tenement building which is the only structure for some distance in all directions still standing tall and well-lit in this neighbourhood.
"...What do you know about the Sabbat in the city? Where they located? Where they put their throne?"
Miss Molly
The entity that was Miss Molly finally moved from where she had been standing. Took one slow and smooth-quiet step backward, followed by a second. Her skirt dragged quietly on the sidewalk as she did. Her hands came from her pockets and one raised in front of her, palm forward, as she shook her head.
"I don't know that much, Gray. They don't exactly invite kids like me to their sermons."
This followed by a small pause.
"Can I go?"
Grey
"...Conditions."
He raises his hand. The free one, that isn't wrapped up in baseball bats. A single finger is raised on that hand.
"You come back here, you announce yourself. You find me first and don't go spooking 'round."
A second finger joins the first.
"You make sure no one sees you. I don't need my herd and my turf collective, wandering their mouths off about some odd little skirt in shadows or getting spooked themselves, thinking you some first step in a new Shovelhead invasion."
And a third finger of course.
"You come back with new information that I can use."
The hand finally drops, Grey's eyes firmly mincing the landscape of the his neighbourhood.
"You do all those, I'll see 'bout your books."
And that. Seemed like that. He didn't move but he didn't offer anything more than that. Lost in thought would be the best marker for it.
Miss Molly
Conditions were provided, and Molly listened carefully while they were laid out. When he finished laying them out and ended on the note that he may even be able to let her get a glance at those books she was after, she nodded enough that the hood would bob visibly.
"I think I can make something like that happen," she said in that clear, cool voice, sounding rather pleased with the terms. She didn't sound stupid. She probably realized she was getting off good without having her head and shoulders beaten with that bat.
Truth be told, she'd realized she used a name that he gave to her two and a half years ago when she was a different person entirely, and was elated with the fact that he was too wrapped up in these revalations about Shovelheads to have noticed.
"I'll come find you sometime, then, announced and unseen both."
He can't see the grin there, but it's bitter and toothy and lurking in the shadows as it tasted the irony in being announced and unnoticed at the same time.
"Goodnight. And happy hunting." And though he could still see her well, for this was His Turf, he knew that she pulled the shadows around her and melded in with them once again. They would escort her to the nearest nook cranny alley to vanish away into.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Chance Encounter [Tam]
Tam
Her life before immortality and the mingling of blessedness and cursedness came to her Molly was more than familiar with the capriciousness of the universe and its whims insofar as her encounters with the undead go.
Neither one of them knows the other one is here or is intending to be here. At least one of them has never bothered learning the discipline of Auspex and so cannot tell the presence or moods of the people in an area before he has entered the area. For whatever reason he has decided to enter the nightclub on East Colfax through the alleyway tonight.
He is a tall man fair of complexion and easy on the eyes. He has restrained his long hair at the nape of his neck and wears clothing one could consider appropriate to the venue. Banged-up boots and jeans and a black leather jacket overtop a white t-shirt. He wears a beard but it is trimmed and neat. Beneath the attire he exudes an air of menace. One can tell from looking at him he is a bruiser. That is all one can tell from looking at him.
Molly is going to take him by surprise.
Miss Molly
In an ordinary world cutting through an alleyway would only lead you to so much danger as a robbery or assault. The culprit would be an ordinary man, though, so nobody that Tam would have to worry about. This wasn't an ordinary world, though, thus evidenced by his very existance, so of course there were other beasts that may have had a similar idea and chosen to skulk in the alleyways between buildings-- the cracks of the city.
When he rounded the corner to the alley that would feed out into the parking lot of a particularly 'hot' night club, Tam would find a figure standing in the very center of it, facing away from him. The figure was human from what he could tell immediately, for it was shaped like one and stood on two legs. It was wearing a bulky gray sweatshirt with the hood up, dark gray, and a black skirt that dragged on the ground and was damp from melting snow up to the knees. Should be cold, but didn't seem to be bothered. Any number of layers could exist underneath.
Just as Tam would be surprised by the unexpected entity standing square in his path, Molly was taken by surprise as well. Her head jerked to the side at first, like she could glance over her shoulder but immediately remembered 'hey dummy you can't see through the side of a hood' and spun about in a swirl of skirts instead (small glimpses of black wide-legged pants to the ground beneath).
No words, not immediately. Just staring, face completely masked in the shadows created by the hood and the dark of winter's night.
Tam
Well shit.
The creature she turns to face stands over six feet tall in thick-soled boots and looks built as solid as the wall behind him. Eyes hard in the darkness and the face into which they are set is handsome but not kind. Rough. He looks as if he came from a life of hard labor and has been ill-suited to finery in this one.
Intelligence she can see even across distance and underneath a hood. Bruiser though he seems he isn't a dimwit.
He keeps his hands in the pockets of his jacket and does not press an approach for nearly stumbling into her.
"Just passing through, miss," he says. Dusty northern English dialect. He's been trying to get rid of it for centuries but hasn't ever had success. "Don't want trouble."
He isn't afraid of her. Wary sure but he isn't afraid. His pallor isn't natural and he isn't doing anything to mitigate it.
Miss Molly
Though it was difficult to tell any details about her appearance under the bulk and shadows of her clothing, Tam got the impression that the frame was at least sturdy if nothing more. Feminine, to be sure, by the cut of hip and breast alike. She was quick to move, but went click-click on the pavement with whatever weird shoes she must be wearing as she did.
"No...," she said slowly, and her voice wasn't exactly what one would expect to come out of the shadow within that hood. It should be cracked and raspy and dry, or wet with bronchitis from living out in the snow and winter without proper shelter as a homeless person lurking in this alley dressed that way should be. Instead, the voice was warm and intelligent and thoughtful and wondering. She sounded like she was considering him very carefully.
"Nobody ever wants trouble, do they?" She stepped out of the way. He'd observe that even her hands were hidden away, tucked into the pockets of the hoodie so nothing could meet the naked eye to betray her any further than how suspicious she was just on principle.
"Are you headed for the P.S. Lounge?" Under the hood, a head jerked to gesture further up the alley.
Tam
A t-shirt and jacket aren't exactly adequate protection against the elements out in the mountains but the cold doesn't appear to be bothering him. Neither does the incongruity between her appearance and her voice bother him. Not even a flicker as he absorbs this.
Timelessness brings with it its own sort of stillness. This creature is very old. She steps aside and he takes it as the invitation to pass that it is. Slow as he goes. Nothing besides nothing to take away from her appearance.
Are you headed for the P.S. Lounge?
Her head jerks. His eyes follow.
"It any good?"
Miss Molly
Though he couldn't see it, he heard the impression of a smile on the words that came from under the hood next. There was laughter there, flavoring the first couple of words that she spoke.
"No, it's fucking terrible."
She stood with her back only a foot or two away from the wall, elbows tucked in close and head down. A learned stance, one that wasn't comfortable or natural for her even still. Something she had to do when spotted but not at all how she'd been standing when he first walked up-- then she'd been standing straight with her shoulders set and chest out, like a predator surveying turf where some grassfeeder was known to graze. This cringing away from the eye thing only happened shen she'd registered that she'd been spotted.
"But the people there are stupid and easy to fool. So good luck with whatever advantages you're about to go try and take."
Tam
"Ah, that's no fun."
As if the advantage is something he prefers to conjure out of defeat and not take from the unsuspecting. If he put forth a bit of effort and appeared human long enough he would not have to try over-hard to look interest or lure dinner away from the rest of the herd. Skulking in the dark isn't his style.
"I think I'll go to Lost Lake instead. Haven't had hipster in a while." He starts to traverse the alleyway but stops when he's made an incomplete pass. Turns and puts his back streetside to face her again. "My partner and I opened a bookstore in the neighborhood, recently. Doppelganger, we're thinking of calling it. You want to let your hood down sometime, drop by. We're open late."
Miss Molly
"Well, good luck to you there as well."
Molly was willing to bid goodbye to this strange newcomer, and started to ease away from the wall when he suddenly turned back around to address her once more. It was an invitation to a bookshop. She was still in a way that said whatever reaction she had was on her face, hidden away. It was handy, not being able to be read like that.
What he didn't know was that her eyes were alight. A bookstore! With new books, that she would be able to go to herself and not send Jack to bring back from a list. If she wanted to let her hood down (no, she absolutely didn't), where it would be looser, less strict with how she had to behave and hide and...
"I'd like that," she said at last, and then took one hand from her pocket to raise it and bid farewell. The flesh of hand and wrist was pale as death washed with water would be, and the fingers were impossibly long and spindly, sharp-ended and dip-dyed pink.
"Take care."
Tam
As if he needed it spelled out for him that he is stepping away from a conversation with a Nosferatu the creature lifts her hand to wave farewell and reveals the grotesque thinness of the hand offering the gesture. Few in this city on either side of the mortal coil to whom she could wave and not horrify.
He does not react. Offers a touch of a smile pale as the skin and hair covering his own bones dusty as his accent but it's genuine. Brujah are not known for their social skills. A wonder he can smile out of anything out of mockery or anticipation.
"You as well, miss."
With that he bows his head. Not a full formal bow but near enough. If he wore a hat he might well tip it to her. No one wears hats or tips them in 2016. He straightens and in straightening turns his back to her and continues out into the lurid lights and midnight foot traffic of Colfax Avenue on a Saturday night.
Her life before immortality and the mingling of blessedness and cursedness came to her Molly was more than familiar with the capriciousness of the universe and its whims insofar as her encounters with the undead go.
Neither one of them knows the other one is here or is intending to be here. At least one of them has never bothered learning the discipline of Auspex and so cannot tell the presence or moods of the people in an area before he has entered the area. For whatever reason he has decided to enter the nightclub on East Colfax through the alleyway tonight.
He is a tall man fair of complexion and easy on the eyes. He has restrained his long hair at the nape of his neck and wears clothing one could consider appropriate to the venue. Banged-up boots and jeans and a black leather jacket overtop a white t-shirt. He wears a beard but it is trimmed and neat. Beneath the attire he exudes an air of menace. One can tell from looking at him he is a bruiser. That is all one can tell from looking at him.
Molly is going to take him by surprise.
Miss Molly
In an ordinary world cutting through an alleyway would only lead you to so much danger as a robbery or assault. The culprit would be an ordinary man, though, so nobody that Tam would have to worry about. This wasn't an ordinary world, though, thus evidenced by his very existance, so of course there were other beasts that may have had a similar idea and chosen to skulk in the alleyways between buildings-- the cracks of the city.
When he rounded the corner to the alley that would feed out into the parking lot of a particularly 'hot' night club, Tam would find a figure standing in the very center of it, facing away from him. The figure was human from what he could tell immediately, for it was shaped like one and stood on two legs. It was wearing a bulky gray sweatshirt with the hood up, dark gray, and a black skirt that dragged on the ground and was damp from melting snow up to the knees. Should be cold, but didn't seem to be bothered. Any number of layers could exist underneath.
Just as Tam would be surprised by the unexpected entity standing square in his path, Molly was taken by surprise as well. Her head jerked to the side at first, like she could glance over her shoulder but immediately remembered 'hey dummy you can't see through the side of a hood' and spun about in a swirl of skirts instead (small glimpses of black wide-legged pants to the ground beneath).
No words, not immediately. Just staring, face completely masked in the shadows created by the hood and the dark of winter's night.
Tam
Well shit.
The creature she turns to face stands over six feet tall in thick-soled boots and looks built as solid as the wall behind him. Eyes hard in the darkness and the face into which they are set is handsome but not kind. Rough. He looks as if he came from a life of hard labor and has been ill-suited to finery in this one.
Intelligence she can see even across distance and underneath a hood. Bruiser though he seems he isn't a dimwit.
He keeps his hands in the pockets of his jacket and does not press an approach for nearly stumbling into her.
"Just passing through, miss," he says. Dusty northern English dialect. He's been trying to get rid of it for centuries but hasn't ever had success. "Don't want trouble."
He isn't afraid of her. Wary sure but he isn't afraid. His pallor isn't natural and he isn't doing anything to mitigate it.
Miss Molly
Though it was difficult to tell any details about her appearance under the bulk and shadows of her clothing, Tam got the impression that the frame was at least sturdy if nothing more. Feminine, to be sure, by the cut of hip and breast alike. She was quick to move, but went click-click on the pavement with whatever weird shoes she must be wearing as she did.
"No...," she said slowly, and her voice wasn't exactly what one would expect to come out of the shadow within that hood. It should be cracked and raspy and dry, or wet with bronchitis from living out in the snow and winter without proper shelter as a homeless person lurking in this alley dressed that way should be. Instead, the voice was warm and intelligent and thoughtful and wondering. She sounded like she was considering him very carefully.
"Nobody ever wants trouble, do they?" She stepped out of the way. He'd observe that even her hands were hidden away, tucked into the pockets of the hoodie so nothing could meet the naked eye to betray her any further than how suspicious she was just on principle.
"Are you headed for the P.S. Lounge?" Under the hood, a head jerked to gesture further up the alley.
Tam
A t-shirt and jacket aren't exactly adequate protection against the elements out in the mountains but the cold doesn't appear to be bothering him. Neither does the incongruity between her appearance and her voice bother him. Not even a flicker as he absorbs this.
Timelessness brings with it its own sort of stillness. This creature is very old. She steps aside and he takes it as the invitation to pass that it is. Slow as he goes. Nothing besides nothing to take away from her appearance.
Are you headed for the P.S. Lounge?
Her head jerks. His eyes follow.
"It any good?"
Miss Molly
Though he couldn't see it, he heard the impression of a smile on the words that came from under the hood next. There was laughter there, flavoring the first couple of words that she spoke.
"No, it's fucking terrible."
She stood with her back only a foot or two away from the wall, elbows tucked in close and head down. A learned stance, one that wasn't comfortable or natural for her even still. Something she had to do when spotted but not at all how she'd been standing when he first walked up-- then she'd been standing straight with her shoulders set and chest out, like a predator surveying turf where some grassfeeder was known to graze. This cringing away from the eye thing only happened shen she'd registered that she'd been spotted.
"But the people there are stupid and easy to fool. So good luck with whatever advantages you're about to go try and take."
Tam
"Ah, that's no fun."
As if the advantage is something he prefers to conjure out of defeat and not take from the unsuspecting. If he put forth a bit of effort and appeared human long enough he would not have to try over-hard to look interest or lure dinner away from the rest of the herd. Skulking in the dark isn't his style.
"I think I'll go to Lost Lake instead. Haven't had hipster in a while." He starts to traverse the alleyway but stops when he's made an incomplete pass. Turns and puts his back streetside to face her again. "My partner and I opened a bookstore in the neighborhood, recently. Doppelganger, we're thinking of calling it. You want to let your hood down sometime, drop by. We're open late."
Miss Molly
"Well, good luck to you there as well."
Molly was willing to bid goodbye to this strange newcomer, and started to ease away from the wall when he suddenly turned back around to address her once more. It was an invitation to a bookshop. She was still in a way that said whatever reaction she had was on her face, hidden away. It was handy, not being able to be read like that.
What he didn't know was that her eyes were alight. A bookstore! With new books, that she would be able to go to herself and not send Jack to bring back from a list. If she wanted to let her hood down (no, she absolutely didn't), where it would be looser, less strict with how she had to behave and hide and...
"I'd like that," she said at last, and then took one hand from her pocket to raise it and bid farewell. The flesh of hand and wrist was pale as death washed with water would be, and the fingers were impossibly long and spindly, sharp-ended and dip-dyed pink.
"Take care."
Tam
As if he needed it spelled out for him that he is stepping away from a conversation with a Nosferatu the creature lifts her hand to wave farewell and reveals the grotesque thinness of the hand offering the gesture. Few in this city on either side of the mortal coil to whom she could wave and not horrify.
He does not react. Offers a touch of a smile pale as the skin and hair covering his own bones dusty as his accent but it's genuine. Brujah are not known for their social skills. A wonder he can smile out of anything out of mockery or anticipation.
"You as well, miss."
With that he bows his head. Not a full formal bow but near enough. If he wore a hat he might well tip it to her. No one wears hats or tips them in 2016. He straightens and in straightening turns his back to her and continues out into the lurid lights and midnight foot traffic of Colfax Avenue on a Saturday night.
The Hotel [The Jack Saga]
Nobody
Blood in a cup, and it is not enough; rich it is and the Beast is put to slumber, somewhat - she'd hardly feel it except that it is new.
The cab driver is an African American woman with a nose-ring, a certain ashy quality to her skin which might indicate too much time spent driving cabs around Denver and the outlying Denver areas at night, or it might indicate that she is a vampire. There is no way to tell; her skin has a healthsome glow otherwise.
"Watch now," Jack tells Molly. "You'll need to learn this."
He puts on a Mask; he becomes one of his Masks.
This Mask has blood spent for it; this Mask is carefully, willfully crafted; this Mask is very different from Jack, himself, Jack on any day. This Jack is dark-haired, chisel-jawed; this Jack has piercing blue eyes, and a thin mouth. This Jack is handsome, but in a razor-will-cut-you way; this Jack is lean-hipped and short. His suit is an impeccable suit: it is of some dark blue that the sea's shadows dream of being. This Mask has a narrow, contemptuous nose; an aesthetic brow; a long throat. This Jack is in perfect proportion, and looks Roman or Greek. This Mask is a consummate performer's opening act.
His voice even sounds different; it still has that honeyed knapp to it, a smoothness when he talks - it's not Jacky's voice and it's not Jack's voice. It's an interesting voice he's heard before; some people might think it enchanting, because why not fake it until you can make it. He heard this voice from some long dead person, once upon a time; now he's using it.
--
And when they're at the Brown Palace Hotel, Jack doesn't seem like he's going to stir from the cab. He says, "I'll be right behind you."
And waits for Molly to make the first move.
Molly
Once in the cab Molly sat with her shoulder pressed in the corner between bench seat and car door, as though she could meld into the vehicle enough to go without the cab driver paying any attention to her.
But the cabbie was ashy-skinned and unconcerned with what was going on in the back seat. She was likely in the know, somehow. Otherwise Jacky probably wouldn't have called for her service in particular.
It's with keen interest that Molly watches the crafting and donning of the mask. He said she'd need to learn, so she watched in that sharp way she's always had, the manner that suggested nothing was escaping her attention and everything was going to be remembered and studied carefully later. As the ugliness was shrouded and replaced, how the handsome new Mediterranean face turned into a entirely new identity all the way to his toes and the threads of his clothes as well.
"That's the trick I'd like to learn," she said softly. These were words that no doubt every Nosferatue childe has uttered in wonderment to their sire, and Molly was no different in that regard.
----
At the hotel Molly hesitated in the back seat of the cab, looking up at the building. Jack didn't move, didn't reach for a car door to let himself out, but instead watched her and waited for her to take lead. He'd be right behind her. With a small nod and after making sure her hood was pulled securely over her balding head and changing face, Molly stepped out of the cab and walked forward without a backward glance to see how or where Jack was following. If he was publicly behind her she'd probably hear his feet and spy his hand reaching for the lobby door. Otherwise, she'd just need to trust that he was keeping his word from whatever station he'd staked for himself with his charming-faced new disguise.
Up to the front desk, as she'd remembered clear as though the instructions were carved right into her.
"Hello. I am Molly Yellow, and I have a reservation."
Nobody
There is no Jack. No Handsome Jack. No Jack at all. Molly seems to go into the Brown Palace Hotel lobby on her own. Molly has been on the other side of the Masquerade, but now she is part of it. Now she has to wear a mask, even if she can't Mask herself yet. Now she has to pretend. New-risen, and already pretending - but already a leg-up, too, knowing what she knows. Can everybody tell? What do they think about her, dressed as she is? How would they taste?
There is a couple, clearly on their honey-moon, in the lobby - the man reading something on his phone, the woman playing with her ring and saying something about no not that place, in thrilling tones. The bar has an amber ambient glow to it, a dull murmur. The bell-hop, the door-man, they're warm and they're food and they're just waiting to be murdered and something in Molly is waiting to murder them (but that something is leashed; it is just so new, too - ).
And the concierge is a Latino man, an older gentleman with silver in his neatly trimmed beard. Raoul is the name on his pin. Molly Yellow, she says. And do his eyes go blank, or dream-like? He is brisk when he says: "Yes, follow me Miss Yellow. I will see that everything for you is just as it should be. Do you want to check your coat?" He has come around, and reaches for it.
Whether or not she gives up her coat, he doesn't push it, but gives her a keen look and then takes her to the elevator.
Up they go. Molly, alone with a human for the first time since she became a vampire. Surely, this close he'll be able to tell?
Molly
Unsurprised that she was making this initial walk alone, Molly made her way through the revolving door and pushed with her shoulder, so that way her hands could stay in the pockets of the big dark sweatshirt she was hiding within. Her skirt dragged on the hard floor and her feet padded silently along it as well, making her feel like something of a spectre in a way.
Molly wasn't unfamiliar with biting her tongue and holding back less-than-nice urges. She did it all the time at work, with patients and other nurses. She had to apply this to vampires too, holding the sharpness of her tongue to keep her pulse just one more night among a dwindling few. It was strange and new and uncomfortable, unpleasant, to now have to hold back on an urge to pounce and pin down and practice strength and predatory prowess upon people-- people, let alone animals in the trees. That was the worst part of it.
When Raoul's eyes seem to shift out of focus, Molly nodded for his indication to follow her, but she did not accept his offer to take her sweater. She shrugged away sharply from him, tucking her elbow from his touch. "No, thank you." And instead followed him to the elevator a good three steps behind.
Once enclosed in the metal box-and-pulley, Molly stood tucked into the corner with her hands still in her pockets and her head down so the hood did a fine job of shadowing her features well. She could worry if he would notice that she didn't breathe with a normal rhythm. She also figured that he was under some kind of enchantment and wouldn't remember much of this encounter later. All the same, it was safest to keep to herself and follow him to whatever room he was supposed to be taking her to without causing any further complications in the process. In-and-out would be best, she didn't want to deal with Sophie and Morris's judgment for long.
Nobody
The elevator chimes softly when it lets Molly out into a hall. Mellow honey walls. The concierge walks her to the private elevator and does not come with her into the elevator, but unlocks it and presses the right code and the private elevator brings her to the foyer. The foyer she remembers: opulent and tasteful and Classic and Classic Aristocratic American. Classic Aristocratic Americana is the living area, couches and walnut tables, touches of timeless elegance: see? Everything here is tasteful wealth, suggestions of Art Nouveau grandeur because the Brown Palace Hotel is Art Nouveau Grandeur, but elegance is sometimes elegant because it knows how to make an understatement. Quality.
The fireplace is cold tonight just as it was cold the other night. There is a crystal decanter again with dark liquid within set on the coffee table although it has lost most of its notebooks and holds only one book. The decanter on the has its crystal lid on: it winks, refracting cold white light. This time Molly might be more interested in the refreshment (will blood taste terrible to her now? Molly doesn't know. Not really. The only blood she's had since dying is vitae and vitae is different. Vitae is addictive, vitae is life.)
And there is Sophie, radiant in her forever-blooming youthfulness skin just now a bloodless ivory a snow white flawlessness. Her sweet curved cheeks. Her sturdy determined jaw. Her luminous prettiness. Last time Molly saw her Sophie's hair was chestnut steraked blonde, cut professionally just at her shoulders with a stylish layered curl. Tonight sees this hair more elegantly coiffed in a simple French twist and a pair of tasteful pearl earrings at her lobes. The Young Woman (But Old, Old Vampire) is must have turned to the elevator when it chimed because she is seated in one of the claw-footed chairs by the fireplace and her body is cheated toward her companion, who she was just speaking to.
Quincey Morris. The vampire stands when the elevator opens. His height is still great and his countenance is placid even now. Unrippled and undisturbed, dirty honey-is-brown hair combed neat and almost shellacked a gleam on it from the low light. His broad lips are parted in what could be mild curiosity or nothing of the sort. There is a sense to Morris, as there ever is, that he is actively present at the same time he is removed, that he is cold but a thaw might come at any moment. His brown eyes are alert but difficult to read.
Molly
The elevator and foyer were familiar to Molly-- she'd been there only a few days prior, though it felt like several years ago for how much she's gone through since then. She felt like she was walking bent, and maybe she was just a little bit under that big sweater, but the blood in her fueled her forward and the tired was a different sort-- not the biological need to rest any longer as much as a mental and emotional exhaustion. She just wanted to be still and cope and hide and adjust and recover.
But instead she walked into the sitting room where Sophie sat with Morris and they both were looking keenly at her-- Sophie sitting, elegant and beautiful, Morris standing watchful and predatory. Molly's brow furrowed and she was silent for a moment, then sighed and took her hands from her pockets and reached for her hood. It would be easier to show first and then tell in this instance.
When Molly lowered her hood, she'd show that her red hair was thinning, but not drastically just yet-- that would take place over the course of the next week or so. Her skin was pale like death, her freckles standing out bold and bright on it. Her nose was shorter, closer to her face somehow, and her otherwise round face seemed more hollow, her chin pointier than before. Her ears were starting to come to a point and poked through her thinned hair. The rest of her was covered in the baggy clothes she'd chosen back down at Jacky's hole in the ground of a nest-- the sweater and skirt did a sufficient job of hiding however else this curse was planning to warp her body. She looked tired, tense, unamused and anxious. Pushed limp hair back behind those pointing ears with fingers that were just a little longer than what seemed quite right.
"Well," she said in a voice that was the same as they'd remember. "I found him."
Nobody
They react.
There is a joy some Nosferatu begin to take in the reactions of the other clans when confronted by their true faces. The joy is vicious or the joy is bitter but it is joy nonetheless. Molly Toombs has become a goblin: skin sloughing into a nightmare's shape -- a young hag, exhaustion-riddled. Morris's dusty brown lashes flicker. Half-blink. He angles his head just so: inquisitive, perhaps, or surprised -- and he turns his eyes to his friend's. He says nothing, but implaccable Morris (still unruffled, but for that half-blink, that angle-of-his head, a faint straightening of his spine) is not prone to verbage.
The Ventrue is quite shocked. The shock dwells in the flex of her pupils. The slow, dismayed, "No." Her voice is an angel's voice: how lovely it is, how many sirens must have been in her family tree to give her that kind of magnetic pull even in a simple denial. Say it again, Sophie. No. No. But her eyes are clouded, and she looks ready to stand poised to stand alertness in her body and she gives Morris a look. Even surprised, even as blunt as she is (and Sophie is blunt: she has a reputation for being a hammer, sometimes even in a glass house), she is adroit enough to hide the rest of her reaction: it must be pity.
"He has done more than agree to be your sponsor," Sophie says. "This is not something I looked for; why did it happen?"
Molly
There was no joy that Molly took in showing what unlife was doing to her. She was fresh to the concept of no longer having her glowing health, vibrant hair and vivacious curves to greet her in the mirror and help her through social navigation. She'd never thought herself as gorgeous, but she's also never had to be ugly before. She watched Morris's face first, for it was always the hardest to read, then looked to Sophie at the chiming-bell pity and sorrow in the word 'no'.
Molly closed her eyes for a moment, against the unwelcome surge of grief that the sound summoned. That was how she felt in her heart, and it was something she would probably be chanting and crying to herself in some corner of her mind for a while now. She hadn't had a time to cry and gnash her teeth yet, and she didn't want that moment to happen here and now. So she swallowed hard, no longer a necessary or natural thing for her throat to do, and opened her eyes again. Still blue, still sharp, still smart.
He has done more than agree to be your sponsor.
Molly scoffed a little, chuckled bitterly as well, and thinning lips curved into a self-deprecating smirk.
"I'll say."
Why did it happen, though? It wasn't something she wanted to see happen. Molly shook her head-- it certainly wasn't anything she'd wanted to see happen either. But she knew already that it was a better idea to watch the amount of sass she was giving this woman, and instead cut to explaining.
"When I found him he was withered away almost to ash-- he was completely dry-up. I had to go and find his essence-- his 'spirit', if you will, and bind it back to his body. So when he awoke he did with a single-minded need and it overtook him." Her voice shrank a little as she continued to that point, and she shrugged weakly to conclude. It was probably a scenario they've heard of more than once before. It couldn't be too rare a thing for a vampire to frenzy upon the wrong person and turn them to stave off the untimely death.
"He wouldn't let me die, so here we are."
Nobody
Her control is something, and perhaps a premonition of Molly the Nosferatu in fifty years. How cold might she become, how modulated in her quest for survival?
Sophie listens, focused in a way that has the whole of her behind it. There are no extraneous glances cast toward Morris this time, although Sophie moves a hand toward him. Easy to imagine that graceful hand-motion is a bid for Morris to hold Sophie's hands, or an affectionate gesture, or a gesture borne out of long familiarty. Easy to imagine that. Easy to imagine a lot of humanity into Sophie, because after all: noblesse oblige.
Morris stays standing, another minute tilt of his head. His cheekbones could cut give his placid countenance sheet metal expressive something of intensity, but in his silence there seems to be Some Thing. He does cast an (Augury Drenched) glance around the room, once. But if Nobody is there, (Nobody is there) he doesn't see through the Don't Look Here.
"This is not good," Sophie says. "Where is he now, this Jack?"
Had Nobody a reflection he'd have been caught already. Messages sent to Sophie's phones and Morris's since Mister Quincey is within. They take security very much to heart.
A consummate performer, Jack is suddenly there. Still that handsome, sharp, dark-haired and blue-eyed Mask he has decided to wear, and he might've always been there, but it wasn't until now that the room felt his presence -- that change of air-pressure which comes from another body. Except: the air doesn't change pressure, again. And it is a nightmare, this person was there all along, watching, watchful.
"I'm here," he says. "You've met my childe, Molly. We have much to discuss, Dame Cecil*, you and I, and I would do it in another room."
"Did you break any laws?"
"When the bus and torpor took away my Mask, but Molly preserved the Masquerade that night."
Sophie and Jack look at one another for a long moment. Sophie's mouth is set and, for such a soft thing, hard.
"Is it love?" Sophie says.
Jack smiles, and it is a sharp Jack that smiles; a Jack with something kind about the eyes, where the eyes are mostly sharp. "There is information and there is information, Dame Cecil. I'd rather speak in the other room; I think," and he is enticing, our Jack, "you'd rather this as well."
Beat. "Morris?"
Morris flicks his eyes toward Jack; there is a long pause, as the large man regards the Nosferatu-whose-face-is-hidden. His mood is occulted; it is serene. After a tick, he stirs to glance at Sophie. "I think it well."
"Very well; the other room."
"I will stay with Miss Molly, if that is allowed," Morris says, and Sophie waves a hand dismissively.
Molly
Asked where Jack was, Molly glanced around but didn't have an immediate answer to give. She clearly didn't know for certain, but had her suspicions. And, sure enough, as the pressure in the room shifted and another shape manifested in the corner of her eye, the answer was provided for her and her suspicions were proven correct. Molly's mouth closed and she watched as Jack, handsome unfamiliar stranger Jack but with a voice much like Jack's own, began to speak up for her and take on Sophie's (Dame Cecil's?) questions instead.
As Jack explained that she had preserved the Masquerade when he was hit by the bus, Molly ducked her head into her shoulders and tugged her sweater hood back up over her head. She envied Morris's ability to hide his thoughts from his face and sought to do the same best she could, substituting many years of experience for the shadows of her hood instead.
It was a good thing that blood didn't actively flow in her veins any longer either, because soon her desire to keep her thoughts off her face would have been foiled by blush. Was it love? Molly's cheeks stayed pale, blush-free, but her mouth twisted in a funny little way when she looked back to Jack to hear his response.
It would have to wait-- he had smiled all sharp-and-charming and insisted on continuing the conversation behind closed doors. Sophie conceded, and Morris requested to stay back with Molly specifically (as opposed to accompanying his mistress into the room). She didn't break her streak of silence, but Molly did look suspiciously at Morris when he made his request. It could be noted that she didn't seek guidance or reassurance from Jack by seeking his eyes at this point. Rather, her gaze stayed wary and watchful and tired (not too worried, though) upon big Quincy Morris.
She would wait for Jack and Sophie to find their place behind closed doors, then look around to take a seat for herself. Hands would fold together, stretched fingers intertwined, and she'd look almost expectantly at Morris.
Okay, big guy, what is it you want.
Nobody
The Jack and the Pillar of the Tower go into the other room. Their voices can be heard, but no words distinguished; the conversation is intense, whatever it is. And when the door closes, at least to Molly's ear there is naught to be heard.
Morris's silence is maintained for a moment, and his eyes focused straight ahead while his ear is elsewhere. He shakes nothing off; that is not how Lunatic blood works.
As Molly sits, Morris does as well. Reserved, controlled, oh he is carefully modulated indeed; he looks Molly over with care, as if he saw every fold every ruined curve every new texture. Which strand of hair is already loosed from her scalp, and will come off with the hood.
And then, almost abruptly, "I find your curiosity very attractive, Miss Molly."
Molly
Molly listened to the voices for as long as she was able to hear them, but when the door closed the silence had to do instead. Morris was holding his tongue as well as she was for the time being, and the newly-turned Vampiress found herself looking almost longingly at the fireplace, wishing that flames were there to crackle conversation filler into her ear. For soon enough, Morris's eyes felt too invested, lingered too much on what could be made out under the skirts and sweater (not much, truthfully, but only several hours have passed and the curves she was blessed with in life still remained as outlines under the bulky fabric).
The hood stayed up as she sat in her seat, she figured she may as well get used to the sensation of hiding under so much fabric.
She was considering this when Morris's voice finally cut through the silence, and what he had to say seemed to surprise her some. A light-coppery eyebrow quirked up within the shadows her hood cast, and then her mouth twisted into a self-depreciating smirk once again.
"Oh? Well, it's a shame that came a little too late. The exterior won't be nearly so attractive anymore."
There's a sarcastic note in her voice, so she probably wasn't sincerely mourning the timing of the advance.
Nobody
Another brief silence. He is familiar with time and its passage. "I would be a liar if I, how do you say, were to tell to you that I am never moved by an attractive exterior. Beauty is unnecessary, but it feels good to be beguiled by it. I think the beauty has more worth but I, eh. I do not know it. The Toreador know this, and they think the beguilement is the point of our lives. You were attractive, but it was not so much to move me."
"Your curiosity however is very attractive, especially the tracks it travels. Did you play the games, the light as a feather stiff as a board, the oujii and other spirit games when you were young?"
Molly
At least, it seemed, Morris could be relied upon to be blunt. Great beauty was nice to be moved by, but what she had before this past night wasn't a great beauty. It was nice, warm, pretty, but not the stuff of legends to be sure. If Molly found herself a little burned or insulted by this statement it was hard to say. She looked relatively unamused to begin with, but this curiosity that he was praising was a difficult thing to smother. It would perhaps titillating for Morris to become aware of this fact, but he himself had been an object of her curiosity from the very beginning. He was the one who managed to lure her back to this very same place days earlier, after all.
The questions had her sitting up straighter in her seat, and her fingers twisted together further.
"Perhaps, from time to time. They're not exactly games anymore, though."
Nobody
"No, they are not." Morris hikes up his pants leg when he settles his ankle on his knee, leaning back. "Did you know that many of our kind think that they are, in spite of that they were once human and were made other at the time of their death?"
Molly
"That they're games?"
Molly's expression cast with doubt. She had difficulty accepting that people who had become Other themselves didn't believe in the Other themselves.
She took time to think internally as opposed to aloud as she may have done with Jacky. Keeping her musings to herself as she worked down a path and came to the question that was really worth pondering aloud.
"So, I suppose there aren't many who have crossed into the other Realm and back as I have."
Nobody
He actually laughs. Fleshy lips part, and his mask-smooth face stays mask-smooth, but there is a thaw in his eyes behind which is a true spark of warmth; couldn't he be a grave-god, and the laugh is short but it stays to burr in his voice through part of what he says next.
"No, there are not. Other 'Realms,' as you say, we are of this Realm, and already not many continue to seek out the occult mysteries of this realm. They are dangerous and many of our kind are afraid of what they mind find if they dig too deep. The God who can make such as us can make any number of monsters, no? The older ones: it takes something to know in one's heart that one is damned, and to choose to continue."
"But I am intrigued by other Realms and the light which casts these shadows we move with. Even humans who know no better do not chase those shadows with as much diligence, or luck, as you do and have done, Miss Molly."
Molly
The laughter impressed Molly. She thought of Morris almost as though he were made of stone and ice and iron borne of some far northern land. That any warmth crackled to thaw beneath, she must have said something very right, or very wrong.
While he spoke, Molly considered what all she knew. She knew of the Darkness, and that it felt ancient and consuming and damning. She considered her own luck and diligence both, and pressed her lips into a thinner line than what they were already. She thought carefully for a moment or two before answering.
"I've just learned much and known where to look. When Sophie told me to execute on what I could find, well...." She thought of the best way to put it, and bucked her own sense of modesty in a way that made her next summarizing statement come out flat. "It was unleashing a bloodhound. Anything can be found, if you know what path to follow."
Nobody
"Modesty," Morris says. "Why are you modest about your skills, or do you truly think you would not have been so fortunate in your quest had you not been dragging in the wake of the Ventrue's compulsion?"
Molly
"Oh, I'm sure I would have been just as fortunate." She sounded casual about this, shrugging off his accusation of modesty with a cool regard that she fit into when it came to her work. Specifically, it was the same tone she'd often used when assuring others within the emergency room (including med students there doing rounds to become doctors) that she was right and had no doubt in it and was about to back it up.
"I don't think I would have given up at any point with or without that compulsion. Although I'm sure I wouldn't be here now without it," she added with a flick of eyes toward the doors behind which her sire and his mistress spoke in muted tones that her ears could not pick up.
"I probably would have been more hesitant and... careful, I suppose, about going in, though. I would have taken more time." Although, now that she thought about it, that may have been too much time for Jacky to hold on.
Oh look, a change of topic.
"How much trouble is he in?"
She meant Jack, of course.
Nobody
"I do not know," Morris says. "He seems capable of speaking for himself, but you may both be given the Sun. I do not think it likely. Sophie is not wasteful and the Prince is a friend to the Nosferatu, capable of great command and decisive thinking, so if you are an accidental Embrace but you are presented as useful, he will likely absolve Jack if there is no pressure brought to bear on his decision. Like most of her clan, Sophie is a soft touch if she believes you useful, which she did, or her sympathies are brought to bear on the humanity of the situation."
Molly
May both be given the Sun.
Molly's eyes widened to hear this, and she looked immediately imploring, even though she already knew Morris had no say in the matter and probably would keep whatever say he might have to himself anyways. It was Sophie's game, and the ball was in her court to boot.
But he continued on, explaining what she was thinking to herself. They could be useful, there had to be some kind of humanity in the situation, to understand how everything had happened and really wasn't it all just so reasonably resolved in the end? The loose cannon Mortal that knew far too much had been brought into their fold, bound to a charming and (insofar, correct?) faithful Vampire with the poor misfortune of being cursed with the monstrous disfigurements of his Clan. Thankfully he was very gifted, for that mask was so handsome and his charm was no doubt going to work so well. It always did before.
"...So we'll see when they're finished then," she said, and looked back to the door once more.
After a few moments of silence she looked to Morris again. Shifted a little uncomfortably and crossed her legs. He was less creepy when he was distracted by explaining things. So rather than go back to his curious interest and heavy observant gaze, she searched for things to fill the conversational void.
"So... what's a guy like yourself got at play here, being the muscle for Sophie. She didn't... make you?"
Nobody
"No, she did not make me." He is occulted now: his light brown eyes, his inexpressive countenance. He could be stone and nobody's know the difference. Perhaps someone told him once, though he has a certain presence. Make it feel unwise, to call him stone. Enough mobility to his skin, the lines around his eyes, when he listens.
"Do you intend to pursue your interest in the occult now that you have become a, ah, a night terror?"
Molly
Molly considered the question and shrugged against the bulky black sweater she hid beneath.
"Perhaps. I don't know what else I would be doing with my time anymore. I would say that I'd learned my lesson after what all's just happened but..." Again, the shrug, and with a dismissive tone she concluded: "I've already died once in the name of an adventure and survived to tell the tale. I'll see how many other tales I can gather before it kills me again."
Nobody
"Then I will make a request of your Sire, and if he is amenable you will spend some nights with me." This is a declarative sentence; but he doesn't say anything after it.
He might be watching her reaction. He is certainly watching her reaction; he just seems aloof from it, at a remove.
Molly
Her reaction wasn't one that she'd try to mask. The suspicion she wore on her death-pale face was as clear as the freckles she wore upon it as well. She untwisted her fingers and set her hands flat atop her knees instead. Pushed up to stretch herself into as straight and cautious a sitting posture as possible.
"Doing what?"
Nobody
"I do not think I will satisfy your attractive curiosity so soon," Morris says. "In time, you will know, or you will not."
Her back creaks, a bone pops. Will it pop back? Of course it will. "They are nearly finished in there," Morris remarks next, innocuous. There is no easy way he could have heard, but then, vampires have many skills.
Molly
He wouldn't answer her question-- whatever plans he may have had for her interest in the occult were going to be kept for later, if ever. She frowned a little, then looked to the doors when he mentioned that the other vampires were nearly finished. She pricked at her tongue with her canines behind closed lips, testing the new sharpness.
"You can hear them?" She inquired, and anxiously watched like she was anxiously waiting for a handle to turn or a voice to rise.
No further questions, though. For now she would quietly wait.
Nobody
"In a fashion."
Molly's anxious watch is rewarded by an almost immediate shift of the handle. The very handsome, very sharp blue-eyed dark-haired Jack, the Jack with a Voice that isn't just honeyed, isn't just silver-tongued, isn't just words I say are so sweet you will swallow this medicine right now, but flirts with hook-you-down the way the Ventrue's does: he's the first one out. Does he look relieved? Hard to tell. He is holding the door, a Gentleman Jack, for Sophie, whose eyes alight on Molly first. Hooded goblin on her chair.
Then she says, to Jack, "I think everything is in order. Do be in touch."
Morris stood again when Sophie and Jack came into the room. He clasps his hands loosely behind his back, and says nothing right now of anything he said to Molly.
Molly
It is with relief that she sees the doorknob shift and Jack's Mask come out first-- still worn precisely as he'd put it on back in the cab, undisturbed by magical or physical attack.
She couldn't quite tell if everything went alright or not, but given that he didn't look distressed and they were saying things like do be in touch, she could presume that they weren't about to be taken out into a clearing somewhere and chained down to wait for sunrise. Morris rose as Sophie and Jack entered the room again, but Molly stayed seated in the chair. Her hands folded together once more, and she watched the beautiful woman (a face she was born with) and beautiful man (a face that was a lie, through and through) for the time being.
Just as Morris didn't speak any of the conversation he and she had about possible borrowed time and attractive curiosity, Molly kept mum just as well. It would no doubt be a conversation to be had later, but for right now Molly was precisely as interested in keeping this affair as short as possible as she had been when she'd initially come in, her shadow (or lack thereof) ridden by an invisible Jacky.
Nobody
"A good evening to you," the Gentleman Jack says to the Lunatic who has taken and twisted the name of an American gunslinger from a Romantic Gothic about vampires and chosen to wear it.
Morris inclines his head; it is perceptible. There is a flex of his mouth, but it is as removed or as internalized as anything about Morris is. Difficult to read a man like that.
"Come, Molly," and Jack holds his hand out for Molly.
They'll be at the elevator when Morris says: "You have no reflection. In this city, you must find that useful."
The Jack smiles; he smiles a conman's smile, a charming smile: "We find all manner of things in this city to be of use, my friend."
The elevator dings; through it they go, the two Nosferatu.
Blood in a cup, and it is not enough; rich it is and the Beast is put to slumber, somewhat - she'd hardly feel it except that it is new.
The cab driver is an African American woman with a nose-ring, a certain ashy quality to her skin which might indicate too much time spent driving cabs around Denver and the outlying Denver areas at night, or it might indicate that she is a vampire. There is no way to tell; her skin has a healthsome glow otherwise.
"Watch now," Jack tells Molly. "You'll need to learn this."
He puts on a Mask; he becomes one of his Masks.
This Mask has blood spent for it; this Mask is carefully, willfully crafted; this Mask is very different from Jack, himself, Jack on any day. This Jack is dark-haired, chisel-jawed; this Jack has piercing blue eyes, and a thin mouth. This Jack is handsome, but in a razor-will-cut-you way; this Jack is lean-hipped and short. His suit is an impeccable suit: it is of some dark blue that the sea's shadows dream of being. This Mask has a narrow, contemptuous nose; an aesthetic brow; a long throat. This Jack is in perfect proportion, and looks Roman or Greek. This Mask is a consummate performer's opening act.
His voice even sounds different; it still has that honeyed knapp to it, a smoothness when he talks - it's not Jacky's voice and it's not Jack's voice. It's an interesting voice he's heard before; some people might think it enchanting, because why not fake it until you can make it. He heard this voice from some long dead person, once upon a time; now he's using it.
--
And when they're at the Brown Palace Hotel, Jack doesn't seem like he's going to stir from the cab. He says, "I'll be right behind you."
And waits for Molly to make the first move.
Molly
Once in the cab Molly sat with her shoulder pressed in the corner between bench seat and car door, as though she could meld into the vehicle enough to go without the cab driver paying any attention to her.
But the cabbie was ashy-skinned and unconcerned with what was going on in the back seat. She was likely in the know, somehow. Otherwise Jacky probably wouldn't have called for her service in particular.
It's with keen interest that Molly watches the crafting and donning of the mask. He said she'd need to learn, so she watched in that sharp way she's always had, the manner that suggested nothing was escaping her attention and everything was going to be remembered and studied carefully later. As the ugliness was shrouded and replaced, how the handsome new Mediterranean face turned into a entirely new identity all the way to his toes and the threads of his clothes as well.
"That's the trick I'd like to learn," she said softly. These were words that no doubt every Nosferatue childe has uttered in wonderment to their sire, and Molly was no different in that regard.
----
At the hotel Molly hesitated in the back seat of the cab, looking up at the building. Jack didn't move, didn't reach for a car door to let himself out, but instead watched her and waited for her to take lead. He'd be right behind her. With a small nod and after making sure her hood was pulled securely over her balding head and changing face, Molly stepped out of the cab and walked forward without a backward glance to see how or where Jack was following. If he was publicly behind her she'd probably hear his feet and spy his hand reaching for the lobby door. Otherwise, she'd just need to trust that he was keeping his word from whatever station he'd staked for himself with his charming-faced new disguise.
Up to the front desk, as she'd remembered clear as though the instructions were carved right into her.
"Hello. I am Molly Yellow, and I have a reservation."
Nobody
There is no Jack. No Handsome Jack. No Jack at all. Molly seems to go into the Brown Palace Hotel lobby on her own. Molly has been on the other side of the Masquerade, but now she is part of it. Now she has to wear a mask, even if she can't Mask herself yet. Now she has to pretend. New-risen, and already pretending - but already a leg-up, too, knowing what she knows. Can everybody tell? What do they think about her, dressed as she is? How would they taste?
There is a couple, clearly on their honey-moon, in the lobby - the man reading something on his phone, the woman playing with her ring and saying something about no not that place, in thrilling tones. The bar has an amber ambient glow to it, a dull murmur. The bell-hop, the door-man, they're warm and they're food and they're just waiting to be murdered and something in Molly is waiting to murder them (but that something is leashed; it is just so new, too - ).
And the concierge is a Latino man, an older gentleman with silver in his neatly trimmed beard. Raoul is the name on his pin. Molly Yellow, she says. And do his eyes go blank, or dream-like? He is brisk when he says: "Yes, follow me Miss Yellow. I will see that everything for you is just as it should be. Do you want to check your coat?" He has come around, and reaches for it.
Whether or not she gives up her coat, he doesn't push it, but gives her a keen look and then takes her to the elevator.
Up they go. Molly, alone with a human for the first time since she became a vampire. Surely, this close he'll be able to tell?
Molly
Unsurprised that she was making this initial walk alone, Molly made her way through the revolving door and pushed with her shoulder, so that way her hands could stay in the pockets of the big dark sweatshirt she was hiding within. Her skirt dragged on the hard floor and her feet padded silently along it as well, making her feel like something of a spectre in a way.
Molly wasn't unfamiliar with biting her tongue and holding back less-than-nice urges. She did it all the time at work, with patients and other nurses. She had to apply this to vampires too, holding the sharpness of her tongue to keep her pulse just one more night among a dwindling few. It was strange and new and uncomfortable, unpleasant, to now have to hold back on an urge to pounce and pin down and practice strength and predatory prowess upon people-- people, let alone animals in the trees. That was the worst part of it.
When Raoul's eyes seem to shift out of focus, Molly nodded for his indication to follow her, but she did not accept his offer to take her sweater. She shrugged away sharply from him, tucking her elbow from his touch. "No, thank you." And instead followed him to the elevator a good three steps behind.
Once enclosed in the metal box-and-pulley, Molly stood tucked into the corner with her hands still in her pockets and her head down so the hood did a fine job of shadowing her features well. She could worry if he would notice that she didn't breathe with a normal rhythm. She also figured that he was under some kind of enchantment and wouldn't remember much of this encounter later. All the same, it was safest to keep to herself and follow him to whatever room he was supposed to be taking her to without causing any further complications in the process. In-and-out would be best, she didn't want to deal with Sophie and Morris's judgment for long.
Nobody
The elevator chimes softly when it lets Molly out into a hall. Mellow honey walls. The concierge walks her to the private elevator and does not come with her into the elevator, but unlocks it and presses the right code and the private elevator brings her to the foyer. The foyer she remembers: opulent and tasteful and Classic and Classic Aristocratic American. Classic Aristocratic Americana is the living area, couches and walnut tables, touches of timeless elegance: see? Everything here is tasteful wealth, suggestions of Art Nouveau grandeur because the Brown Palace Hotel is Art Nouveau Grandeur, but elegance is sometimes elegant because it knows how to make an understatement. Quality.
The fireplace is cold tonight just as it was cold the other night. There is a crystal decanter again with dark liquid within set on the coffee table although it has lost most of its notebooks and holds only one book. The decanter on the has its crystal lid on: it winks, refracting cold white light. This time Molly might be more interested in the refreshment (will blood taste terrible to her now? Molly doesn't know. Not really. The only blood she's had since dying is vitae and vitae is different. Vitae is addictive, vitae is life.)
And there is Sophie, radiant in her forever-blooming youthfulness skin just now a bloodless ivory a snow white flawlessness. Her sweet curved cheeks. Her sturdy determined jaw. Her luminous prettiness. Last time Molly saw her Sophie's hair was chestnut steraked blonde, cut professionally just at her shoulders with a stylish layered curl. Tonight sees this hair more elegantly coiffed in a simple French twist and a pair of tasteful pearl earrings at her lobes. The Young Woman (But Old, Old Vampire) is must have turned to the elevator when it chimed because she is seated in one of the claw-footed chairs by the fireplace and her body is cheated toward her companion, who she was just speaking to.
Quincey Morris. The vampire stands when the elevator opens. His height is still great and his countenance is placid even now. Unrippled and undisturbed, dirty honey-is-brown hair combed neat and almost shellacked a gleam on it from the low light. His broad lips are parted in what could be mild curiosity or nothing of the sort. There is a sense to Morris, as there ever is, that he is actively present at the same time he is removed, that he is cold but a thaw might come at any moment. His brown eyes are alert but difficult to read.
Molly
The elevator and foyer were familiar to Molly-- she'd been there only a few days prior, though it felt like several years ago for how much she's gone through since then. She felt like she was walking bent, and maybe she was just a little bit under that big sweater, but the blood in her fueled her forward and the tired was a different sort-- not the biological need to rest any longer as much as a mental and emotional exhaustion. She just wanted to be still and cope and hide and adjust and recover.
But instead she walked into the sitting room where Sophie sat with Morris and they both were looking keenly at her-- Sophie sitting, elegant and beautiful, Morris standing watchful and predatory. Molly's brow furrowed and she was silent for a moment, then sighed and took her hands from her pockets and reached for her hood. It would be easier to show first and then tell in this instance.
When Molly lowered her hood, she'd show that her red hair was thinning, but not drastically just yet-- that would take place over the course of the next week or so. Her skin was pale like death, her freckles standing out bold and bright on it. Her nose was shorter, closer to her face somehow, and her otherwise round face seemed more hollow, her chin pointier than before. Her ears were starting to come to a point and poked through her thinned hair. The rest of her was covered in the baggy clothes she'd chosen back down at Jacky's hole in the ground of a nest-- the sweater and skirt did a sufficient job of hiding however else this curse was planning to warp her body. She looked tired, tense, unamused and anxious. Pushed limp hair back behind those pointing ears with fingers that were just a little longer than what seemed quite right.
"Well," she said in a voice that was the same as they'd remember. "I found him."
Nobody
They react.
There is a joy some Nosferatu begin to take in the reactions of the other clans when confronted by their true faces. The joy is vicious or the joy is bitter but it is joy nonetheless. Molly Toombs has become a goblin: skin sloughing into a nightmare's shape -- a young hag, exhaustion-riddled. Morris's dusty brown lashes flicker. Half-blink. He angles his head just so: inquisitive, perhaps, or surprised -- and he turns his eyes to his friend's. He says nothing, but implaccable Morris (still unruffled, but for that half-blink, that angle-of-his head, a faint straightening of his spine) is not prone to verbage.
The Ventrue is quite shocked. The shock dwells in the flex of her pupils. The slow, dismayed, "No." Her voice is an angel's voice: how lovely it is, how many sirens must have been in her family tree to give her that kind of magnetic pull even in a simple denial. Say it again, Sophie. No. No. But her eyes are clouded, and she looks ready to stand poised to stand alertness in her body and she gives Morris a look. Even surprised, even as blunt as she is (and Sophie is blunt: she has a reputation for being a hammer, sometimes even in a glass house), she is adroit enough to hide the rest of her reaction: it must be pity.
"He has done more than agree to be your sponsor," Sophie says. "This is not something I looked for; why did it happen?"
Molly
There was no joy that Molly took in showing what unlife was doing to her. She was fresh to the concept of no longer having her glowing health, vibrant hair and vivacious curves to greet her in the mirror and help her through social navigation. She'd never thought herself as gorgeous, but she's also never had to be ugly before. She watched Morris's face first, for it was always the hardest to read, then looked to Sophie at the chiming-bell pity and sorrow in the word 'no'.
Molly closed her eyes for a moment, against the unwelcome surge of grief that the sound summoned. That was how she felt in her heart, and it was something she would probably be chanting and crying to herself in some corner of her mind for a while now. She hadn't had a time to cry and gnash her teeth yet, and she didn't want that moment to happen here and now. So she swallowed hard, no longer a necessary or natural thing for her throat to do, and opened her eyes again. Still blue, still sharp, still smart.
He has done more than agree to be your sponsor.
Molly scoffed a little, chuckled bitterly as well, and thinning lips curved into a self-deprecating smirk.
"I'll say."
Why did it happen, though? It wasn't something she wanted to see happen. Molly shook her head-- it certainly wasn't anything she'd wanted to see happen either. But she knew already that it was a better idea to watch the amount of sass she was giving this woman, and instead cut to explaining.
"When I found him he was withered away almost to ash-- he was completely dry-up. I had to go and find his essence-- his 'spirit', if you will, and bind it back to his body. So when he awoke he did with a single-minded need and it overtook him." Her voice shrank a little as she continued to that point, and she shrugged weakly to conclude. It was probably a scenario they've heard of more than once before. It couldn't be too rare a thing for a vampire to frenzy upon the wrong person and turn them to stave off the untimely death.
"He wouldn't let me die, so here we are."
Nobody
Her control is something, and perhaps a premonition of Molly the Nosferatu in fifty years. How cold might she become, how modulated in her quest for survival?
Sophie listens, focused in a way that has the whole of her behind it. There are no extraneous glances cast toward Morris this time, although Sophie moves a hand toward him. Easy to imagine that graceful hand-motion is a bid for Morris to hold Sophie's hands, or an affectionate gesture, or a gesture borne out of long familiarty. Easy to imagine that. Easy to imagine a lot of humanity into Sophie, because after all: noblesse oblige.
Morris stays standing, another minute tilt of his head. His cheekbones could cut give his placid countenance sheet metal expressive something of intensity, but in his silence there seems to be Some Thing. He does cast an (Augury Drenched) glance around the room, once. But if Nobody is there, (Nobody is there) he doesn't see through the Don't Look Here.
"This is not good," Sophie says. "Where is he now, this Jack?"
Had Nobody a reflection he'd have been caught already. Messages sent to Sophie's phones and Morris's since Mister Quincey is within. They take security very much to heart.
A consummate performer, Jack is suddenly there. Still that handsome, sharp, dark-haired and blue-eyed Mask he has decided to wear, and he might've always been there, but it wasn't until now that the room felt his presence -- that change of air-pressure which comes from another body. Except: the air doesn't change pressure, again. And it is a nightmare, this person was there all along, watching, watchful.
"I'm here," he says. "You've met my childe, Molly. We have much to discuss, Dame Cecil*, you and I, and I would do it in another room."
"Did you break any laws?"
"When the bus and torpor took away my Mask, but Molly preserved the Masquerade that night."
Sophie and Jack look at one another for a long moment. Sophie's mouth is set and, for such a soft thing, hard.
"Is it love?" Sophie says.
Jack smiles, and it is a sharp Jack that smiles; a Jack with something kind about the eyes, where the eyes are mostly sharp. "There is information and there is information, Dame Cecil. I'd rather speak in the other room; I think," and he is enticing, our Jack, "you'd rather this as well."
Beat. "Morris?"
Morris flicks his eyes toward Jack; there is a long pause, as the large man regards the Nosferatu-whose-face-is-hidden. His mood is occulted; it is serene. After a tick, he stirs to glance at Sophie. "I think it well."
"Very well; the other room."
"I will stay with Miss Molly, if that is allowed," Morris says, and Sophie waves a hand dismissively.
Molly
Asked where Jack was, Molly glanced around but didn't have an immediate answer to give. She clearly didn't know for certain, but had her suspicions. And, sure enough, as the pressure in the room shifted and another shape manifested in the corner of her eye, the answer was provided for her and her suspicions were proven correct. Molly's mouth closed and she watched as Jack, handsome unfamiliar stranger Jack but with a voice much like Jack's own, began to speak up for her and take on Sophie's (Dame Cecil's?) questions instead.
As Jack explained that she had preserved the Masquerade when he was hit by the bus, Molly ducked her head into her shoulders and tugged her sweater hood back up over her head. She envied Morris's ability to hide his thoughts from his face and sought to do the same best she could, substituting many years of experience for the shadows of her hood instead.
It was a good thing that blood didn't actively flow in her veins any longer either, because soon her desire to keep her thoughts off her face would have been foiled by blush. Was it love? Molly's cheeks stayed pale, blush-free, but her mouth twisted in a funny little way when she looked back to Jack to hear his response.
It would have to wait-- he had smiled all sharp-and-charming and insisted on continuing the conversation behind closed doors. Sophie conceded, and Morris requested to stay back with Molly specifically (as opposed to accompanying his mistress into the room). She didn't break her streak of silence, but Molly did look suspiciously at Morris when he made his request. It could be noted that she didn't seek guidance or reassurance from Jack by seeking his eyes at this point. Rather, her gaze stayed wary and watchful and tired (not too worried, though) upon big Quincy Morris.
She would wait for Jack and Sophie to find their place behind closed doors, then look around to take a seat for herself. Hands would fold together, stretched fingers intertwined, and she'd look almost expectantly at Morris.
Okay, big guy, what is it you want.
Nobody
The Jack and the Pillar of the Tower go into the other room. Their voices can be heard, but no words distinguished; the conversation is intense, whatever it is. And when the door closes, at least to Molly's ear there is naught to be heard.
Morris's silence is maintained for a moment, and his eyes focused straight ahead while his ear is elsewhere. He shakes nothing off; that is not how Lunatic blood works.
As Molly sits, Morris does as well. Reserved, controlled, oh he is carefully modulated indeed; he looks Molly over with care, as if he saw every fold every ruined curve every new texture. Which strand of hair is already loosed from her scalp, and will come off with the hood.
And then, almost abruptly, "I find your curiosity very attractive, Miss Molly."
Molly
Molly listened to the voices for as long as she was able to hear them, but when the door closed the silence had to do instead. Morris was holding his tongue as well as she was for the time being, and the newly-turned Vampiress found herself looking almost longingly at the fireplace, wishing that flames were there to crackle conversation filler into her ear. For soon enough, Morris's eyes felt too invested, lingered too much on what could be made out under the skirts and sweater (not much, truthfully, but only several hours have passed and the curves she was blessed with in life still remained as outlines under the bulky fabric).
The hood stayed up as she sat in her seat, she figured she may as well get used to the sensation of hiding under so much fabric.
She was considering this when Morris's voice finally cut through the silence, and what he had to say seemed to surprise her some. A light-coppery eyebrow quirked up within the shadows her hood cast, and then her mouth twisted into a self-depreciating smirk once again.
"Oh? Well, it's a shame that came a little too late. The exterior won't be nearly so attractive anymore."
There's a sarcastic note in her voice, so she probably wasn't sincerely mourning the timing of the advance.
Nobody
Another brief silence. He is familiar with time and its passage. "I would be a liar if I, how do you say, were to tell to you that I am never moved by an attractive exterior. Beauty is unnecessary, but it feels good to be beguiled by it. I think the beauty has more worth but I, eh. I do not know it. The Toreador know this, and they think the beguilement is the point of our lives. You were attractive, but it was not so much to move me."
"Your curiosity however is very attractive, especially the tracks it travels. Did you play the games, the light as a feather stiff as a board, the oujii and other spirit games when you were young?"
Molly
At least, it seemed, Morris could be relied upon to be blunt. Great beauty was nice to be moved by, but what she had before this past night wasn't a great beauty. It was nice, warm, pretty, but not the stuff of legends to be sure. If Molly found herself a little burned or insulted by this statement it was hard to say. She looked relatively unamused to begin with, but this curiosity that he was praising was a difficult thing to smother. It would perhaps titillating for Morris to become aware of this fact, but he himself had been an object of her curiosity from the very beginning. He was the one who managed to lure her back to this very same place days earlier, after all.
The questions had her sitting up straighter in her seat, and her fingers twisted together further.
"Perhaps, from time to time. They're not exactly games anymore, though."
Nobody
"No, they are not." Morris hikes up his pants leg when he settles his ankle on his knee, leaning back. "Did you know that many of our kind think that they are, in spite of that they were once human and were made other at the time of their death?"
Molly
"That they're games?"
Molly's expression cast with doubt. She had difficulty accepting that people who had become Other themselves didn't believe in the Other themselves.
She took time to think internally as opposed to aloud as she may have done with Jacky. Keeping her musings to herself as she worked down a path and came to the question that was really worth pondering aloud.
"So, I suppose there aren't many who have crossed into the other Realm and back as I have."
Nobody
He actually laughs. Fleshy lips part, and his mask-smooth face stays mask-smooth, but there is a thaw in his eyes behind which is a true spark of warmth; couldn't he be a grave-god, and the laugh is short but it stays to burr in his voice through part of what he says next.
"No, there are not. Other 'Realms,' as you say, we are of this Realm, and already not many continue to seek out the occult mysteries of this realm. They are dangerous and many of our kind are afraid of what they mind find if they dig too deep. The God who can make such as us can make any number of monsters, no? The older ones: it takes something to know in one's heart that one is damned, and to choose to continue."
"But I am intrigued by other Realms and the light which casts these shadows we move with. Even humans who know no better do not chase those shadows with as much diligence, or luck, as you do and have done, Miss Molly."
Molly
The laughter impressed Molly. She thought of Morris almost as though he were made of stone and ice and iron borne of some far northern land. That any warmth crackled to thaw beneath, she must have said something very right, or very wrong.
While he spoke, Molly considered what all she knew. She knew of the Darkness, and that it felt ancient and consuming and damning. She considered her own luck and diligence both, and pressed her lips into a thinner line than what they were already. She thought carefully for a moment or two before answering.
"I've just learned much and known where to look. When Sophie told me to execute on what I could find, well...." She thought of the best way to put it, and bucked her own sense of modesty in a way that made her next summarizing statement come out flat. "It was unleashing a bloodhound. Anything can be found, if you know what path to follow."
Nobody
"Modesty," Morris says. "Why are you modest about your skills, or do you truly think you would not have been so fortunate in your quest had you not been dragging in the wake of the Ventrue's compulsion?"
Molly
"Oh, I'm sure I would have been just as fortunate." She sounded casual about this, shrugging off his accusation of modesty with a cool regard that she fit into when it came to her work. Specifically, it was the same tone she'd often used when assuring others within the emergency room (including med students there doing rounds to become doctors) that she was right and had no doubt in it and was about to back it up.
"I don't think I would have given up at any point with or without that compulsion. Although I'm sure I wouldn't be here now without it," she added with a flick of eyes toward the doors behind which her sire and his mistress spoke in muted tones that her ears could not pick up.
"I probably would have been more hesitant and... careful, I suppose, about going in, though. I would have taken more time." Although, now that she thought about it, that may have been too much time for Jacky to hold on.
Oh look, a change of topic.
"How much trouble is he in?"
She meant Jack, of course.
Nobody
"I do not know," Morris says. "He seems capable of speaking for himself, but you may both be given the Sun. I do not think it likely. Sophie is not wasteful and the Prince is a friend to the Nosferatu, capable of great command and decisive thinking, so if you are an accidental Embrace but you are presented as useful, he will likely absolve Jack if there is no pressure brought to bear on his decision. Like most of her clan, Sophie is a soft touch if she believes you useful, which she did, or her sympathies are brought to bear on the humanity of the situation."
Molly
May both be given the Sun.
Molly's eyes widened to hear this, and she looked immediately imploring, even though she already knew Morris had no say in the matter and probably would keep whatever say he might have to himself anyways. It was Sophie's game, and the ball was in her court to boot.
But he continued on, explaining what she was thinking to herself. They could be useful, there had to be some kind of humanity in the situation, to understand how everything had happened and really wasn't it all just so reasonably resolved in the end? The loose cannon Mortal that knew far too much had been brought into their fold, bound to a charming and (insofar, correct?) faithful Vampire with the poor misfortune of being cursed with the monstrous disfigurements of his Clan. Thankfully he was very gifted, for that mask was so handsome and his charm was no doubt going to work so well. It always did before.
"...So we'll see when they're finished then," she said, and looked back to the door once more.
After a few moments of silence she looked to Morris again. Shifted a little uncomfortably and crossed her legs. He was less creepy when he was distracted by explaining things. So rather than go back to his curious interest and heavy observant gaze, she searched for things to fill the conversational void.
"So... what's a guy like yourself got at play here, being the muscle for Sophie. She didn't... make you?"
Nobody
"No, she did not make me." He is occulted now: his light brown eyes, his inexpressive countenance. He could be stone and nobody's know the difference. Perhaps someone told him once, though he has a certain presence. Make it feel unwise, to call him stone. Enough mobility to his skin, the lines around his eyes, when he listens.
"Do you intend to pursue your interest in the occult now that you have become a, ah, a night terror?"
Molly
Molly considered the question and shrugged against the bulky black sweater she hid beneath.
"Perhaps. I don't know what else I would be doing with my time anymore. I would say that I'd learned my lesson after what all's just happened but..." Again, the shrug, and with a dismissive tone she concluded: "I've already died once in the name of an adventure and survived to tell the tale. I'll see how many other tales I can gather before it kills me again."
Nobody
"Then I will make a request of your Sire, and if he is amenable you will spend some nights with me." This is a declarative sentence; but he doesn't say anything after it.
He might be watching her reaction. He is certainly watching her reaction; he just seems aloof from it, at a remove.
Molly
Her reaction wasn't one that she'd try to mask. The suspicion she wore on her death-pale face was as clear as the freckles she wore upon it as well. She untwisted her fingers and set her hands flat atop her knees instead. Pushed up to stretch herself into as straight and cautious a sitting posture as possible.
"Doing what?"
Nobody
"I do not think I will satisfy your attractive curiosity so soon," Morris says. "In time, you will know, or you will not."
Her back creaks, a bone pops. Will it pop back? Of course it will. "They are nearly finished in there," Morris remarks next, innocuous. There is no easy way he could have heard, but then, vampires have many skills.
Molly
He wouldn't answer her question-- whatever plans he may have had for her interest in the occult were going to be kept for later, if ever. She frowned a little, then looked to the doors when he mentioned that the other vampires were nearly finished. She pricked at her tongue with her canines behind closed lips, testing the new sharpness.
"You can hear them?" She inquired, and anxiously watched like she was anxiously waiting for a handle to turn or a voice to rise.
No further questions, though. For now she would quietly wait.
Nobody
"In a fashion."
Molly's anxious watch is rewarded by an almost immediate shift of the handle. The very handsome, very sharp blue-eyed dark-haired Jack, the Jack with a Voice that isn't just honeyed, isn't just silver-tongued, isn't just words I say are so sweet you will swallow this medicine right now, but flirts with hook-you-down the way the Ventrue's does: he's the first one out. Does he look relieved? Hard to tell. He is holding the door, a Gentleman Jack, for Sophie, whose eyes alight on Molly first. Hooded goblin on her chair.
Then she says, to Jack, "I think everything is in order. Do be in touch."
Morris stood again when Sophie and Jack came into the room. He clasps his hands loosely behind his back, and says nothing right now of anything he said to Molly.
Molly
It is with relief that she sees the doorknob shift and Jack's Mask come out first-- still worn precisely as he'd put it on back in the cab, undisturbed by magical or physical attack.
She couldn't quite tell if everything went alright or not, but given that he didn't look distressed and they were saying things like do be in touch, she could presume that they weren't about to be taken out into a clearing somewhere and chained down to wait for sunrise. Morris rose as Sophie and Jack entered the room again, but Molly stayed seated in the chair. Her hands folded together once more, and she watched the beautiful woman (a face she was born with) and beautiful man (a face that was a lie, through and through) for the time being.
Just as Morris didn't speak any of the conversation he and she had about possible borrowed time and attractive curiosity, Molly kept mum just as well. It would no doubt be a conversation to be had later, but for right now Molly was precisely as interested in keeping this affair as short as possible as she had been when she'd initially come in, her shadow (or lack thereof) ridden by an invisible Jacky.
Nobody
"A good evening to you," the Gentleman Jack says to the Lunatic who has taken and twisted the name of an American gunslinger from a Romantic Gothic about vampires and chosen to wear it.
Morris inclines his head; it is perceptible. There is a flex of his mouth, but it is as removed or as internalized as anything about Morris is. Difficult to read a man like that.
"Come, Molly," and Jack holds his hand out for Molly.
They'll be at the elevator when Morris says: "You have no reflection. In this city, you must find that useful."
The Jack smiles; he smiles a conman's smile, a charming smile: "We find all manner of things in this city to be of use, my friend."
The elevator dings; through it they go, the two Nosferatu.
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