Ian Lai
Perhaps Grace was beginning to wonder if Ian
no longer required her help. It had been... what, a week since they'd
spoken? A few days more? Ian didn't waste time explaining why it had
taken him so long to get back to her. Instead he just fired away a text
on Tuesday afternoon.
About our last conversation: I got
something I think you can use. I'm meeting with Alyssa tonight.
Apparently she's involved in this too. Want to come with me?
When
she agreed, he'd offer to give her a ride if she needed it. If not,
they'd meet there. Either way, at some point on Tuesday evening the two
of them showed up at Alyssa's apartment on East Colfax. Ian parked
outside and grabbed something out of his car: an old quilt, neatly
folded and tucked beneath his arm. Then he walked with Grace to the door
and hit the buzzer, waiting for Alyssa to let them inside.
"Thanks for doing this, by the way."
This
he offered to Grace, because she could have just as easily said no. And
whatever assumptions people might have had about Ian, he was, in fact,
capable of recognizing when he owed someone his gratitude.
Grace
"Don't
mention it. I just hope I can actually help," Grace says, while they
wait at the door. Wasn't too long ago that she and Alyssa first met --
at this very door. It was a tense affair, really -- the second time
anyone had leveled a gun at her. But that's in the past.
Alyssa's
apartment isn't exactly her favorite place, all covered with sigils
drawn in blood. But the virus that made the blood on the walls so
uncomfortable is another thing that's in the past.
"You ever met Alyssa before? She's really nice, once she trusts you."
It must be a Mage thing -- so often their kind distrust each other, and then go on to save each other's lives.
Alyssa Solomon
[[Magedar!]]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Alyssa Solomon
Alyssa
is waiting for them, of course; she knows that they're on the way. She
doesn't bother to straighten up the place for a couple of reasons; the
first is that she knows Grace has already seen it and so she doesn't
have anything to hide. The second, honestly, is that she only does so
when she has clients that she sees here. She doesn’t take a lot of
meetings for her job in the residence but it is known to happen and
that's the only time that she puts up the posters to hide the
dried-blood seals on the walls around the room, old and retraced a few
times from the look of it.
Those seals are the creepiest part of
her apartment; the rest is fairly normal for an occult investigator.
There is clutter but it is mostly kept in fairly specific areas, piled
on in a way that Alyssa can probably find anything quickly but anyone
else might have problems. A full bed is off to side of the room, far
enough away from both the entryway and the screen door to the balcony
that she can’t be surprised by anyone coming in either. (That might be a
little paranoid, since she’s on the third floor, but when you’re a
mage..) The floor isn’t carpeted but laminate; she chose the apartment
specifically for that because it’s easier to get your security deposit
back if you don’t have a lot of bleach spots dotting the floor. Also,
it lets her use spray paint and candles without the need for concern
that it won’t ever come up. She does have a spot where there’s a coffee
table, a couch, an old worn easy chair and an old (CRT, not LCD)
television, though the area is the least cluttered and thus probably
doesn’t get a lot of use.
Everywhere you look there are strange
knick-knacks or piles of books. Next to the bed is an assortment of old
paperbacks with the covers worn thin or missing; next to her desk is a
set of old tomes in Latin. On the wall is a map of Denver with lines
drawn this way and that, a bunch of color-headed pins stuck in.
Pictures of people are taped to the wall next to it and some names or
locations are ones that Grace and Ian might be familiar with
(Gallowglass, Carnevale, etc.) The kitchenette are appears to be a
place where she goes to microwave stuff or get drinks. And there are
more than a few ashtrays around, in various states of being full.
Currently sitting on the coffee table are several folders and another,
smaller map with various notes drawn on it in English and Latin.
Highlighter marks. Alyssa’s been busy.
And that's where Alyssa is
currently, dressed down in a black Sex Pistols tank top and jeans. Her
face is makeup free in one of those rare moments, her hair currently
rocking a neon green color. She's got her right hand wrapped up in
bandages underneath a wrist brace, looking over the papers and making a
couple of notes. Her gun sits on the couch next to her. She's keeping
an eye out for the door or a sign of the Resonances she knows--Grace's,
that is.
She's already rising when the buzzer sounds. She hads to
the door, hitting the buzzer so they can head up. The gun is left on
the couch; she doesn't have any need for it now, she hopes.
Ian Lai
[Per+Awareness]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ian Lai
[Prime 1 - watch the weaving - diff 4 -1 (practiced)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 6) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
[Per+Awareness]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 3 )
Ian Lai
Ian
wasn't aware of the history between Grace and Alyssa. He knew that they
knew each other, and that was all. Perhaps he'd asked Grace here as
much for diplomatic reasons as he had for the sake of efficiency. It was
not always especially clear why Ian did much of anything.
"Not yet. I don't care if she's nice. I just care about what she knows."
Alyssa's
habit of distrusting strangers was hardly unfamiliar to Ian, and he
only cared about it insofar as it proved an inconvenience to him. They
were not altogether dissimilar creatures, he and Alyssa. At least as far
as trust was concerned. And apparently they had a particular focus in
common, because while Ian and Grace made their way inside the building,
Ian slipped a small knife out of his pocket and used it to nick a small
cut in the pad of his thumb. A drop of blood welled up where the skin
was broken, and he sucked on it briefly, looking around as he did so.
His senses were wide open tonight, casting out around him for signs of
Alyssa's willworking. Whatever marks she'd made on the space to call it
her own.
Evidently, he didn't find anything that gave him cause
for alarm, because he had the knife back in his pocket a moment later,
and his attitude seemed slightly more relaxed.
Not that Alyssa's
resonance alone wasn't somewhat alarming, but he'd dealt with worse.
Blood was hardly a thing to be feared, for him. He eyed the sigils on
the wall with aloof curiosity and a hint of interest before turning his
attention fully to Alyssa.
"I think we've got some information to share."
Ian,
of course, was dressed as he usually was. Casually fashionable, in dark
fitted jeans, black harness boots and a black t-shirt. His left wrist
had a braided leather band around it. He let Grace make her own
introductions (since she and Alyssa already knew each other) and stepped
over in the direction of the couch.
The smell here was... not
pleasant. Cigarette ash tended to give him headaches, particularly with
his acute senses. But he didn't say anything about it.
Grace
Ian doesn't care if Alyssa is nice, and Grace just remains silent. Yeah, you might care a wee bit if she decides not to be nice there, bucko. The woman doesn't wear steel-toed shoes for nothing. And that's not to mention the gun.
"Hey,
Alyssa," she says when the door opens, and then her gaze drifts down to
Alyssa's wrist brace. "What happened? You decide to get in a fist fight
with a rock monster?"
She strides into the apartment, not really
noticing the cleanliness (or lack thereof). More concern is placed on
those wards and maps.
"Oh yeah, this is Ian. He brought Sky's
quilt. I hope I can, you know, trace some residue to its source, so to
speak," she says, and pats her laptop bag.
Alyssa Solomon
Ian's
lack of concern over niceties is mirrored in Alyssa. Yes, the woman
can be friendly but that belies the nature of her upbringing and the
fact that she is, essentially, a cynic who has a bit of a history with
the dead. And much as she's normally smiling, she's in an absolute shit
mood right now. As soon as the buzzer had been hit she was walking
back toward the kitchen, grabbing a Corona (or "piss beer" as Kalen
loves to refer to them and popping the top off. She's drinking from it
as the two come in.
One other thing of note about the apartment:
there are no mirrors located anywhere within. The bathroom mirror was
removed and none other could be found if Ian or Grace went searching.
Most things that could potentially reflect are covered, with the
exception of the TV and computer screens, and the windows. If Ian looks
closely enough, he'll see only two of the current residents of
apartment reflected in them.
"Hey Grace." That's the best she
gets of friendliness at the moment, before she's looking at Ian, sizing
him up. She hasn't felt his Resonance before, which is surprising; she
expected his to be the one from Claire's apartment. But then Sky's
would make sense, now that she knows he was (is?) a mage. That she has a
face to place with the name doesn't help. It's also worth noting that
while she's willing to talk with him since Kalen vouched for him, there
isn't a strong sense of inherent trust directed toward the man. She's
questioned Kalen's judgment about people before, and it's been
acknowledged that the Hermetic's opinion is potentially biased, so she
just regards him and nods a little.
"Yeah, guess we do. Have a seat. I have terrible beer if you want it. I think we have a fair amount to share."
She
looks Grace. "I punched out the window in my bathroom. It looked at
me funny." There's a curt wryness to the joke. "Sounds like a plan. I
think I know where we might find him though."
Ian Lai
Ian
lofted an eyebrow lightly at Alyssa's comment about punching her
bathroom window, but he didn't question her about it. Alyssa's business
was her own. Perhaps another day they could sit down for a chat, but
tonight neither of them seemed interested in doing that.
She
offered him a seat, and Ian glanced at the couch for a few seconds - as
though it was a thing that required contemplation - before settling down
and setting the folded quilt beside him. He sat like someone who was
not expecting to be seated for long: perched at the edge of the cushion
with his spine straight and his hands on his knees.
Alyssa didn't
trust him. Most people didn't. Something about the combination of his
resonance and the sense of the feline predator that lurked behind his
eyes and beneath his skin. His behavior didn't exactly help, either.
Though
it was easy enough to see why Kalen had found him interesting. Perhaps
that was why Alyssa found the Hermetic's judgment suspect.
"I'm fine, thanks."
When
Alyssa suggested she might know where Sky was already, Ian looked at
her with interest. "You think he's at the lake you mentioned?"
Grace
"You think you know? A lake?" Grace asks, the odd one out here.
Also,
the odd one, in that she trusts everyone in the room, at least enough.
Enough to bring Ian here. She doesn't actually think either of them will
get murderous here soon, but they are still quite leery of each other.
Grace walks over to the map, to look for a lake upon it with a pushpin or note.
"If anything, I might be able to at least get confirmation if you don't already have it."
Alyssa Solomon
Her
trust issues, if they ever get comfortable enough to discuss it, have
nothing (okay, not much) to do with Ian's Resonance actually. She's not
one to talk, after all, the bloody angel (or demon when she's enraged)
has been the source of more guns pointed at her by mages than anything
else. But that's neither here nor there right now.
She shrugs
when Ian waves off the beer and takes another drink of her own. It's
down to half now, by the way. Ian's the feline predator, but Alyssa is
the one who is prowling at the moment, walking back and forth and around
the apartment. It's twitchy, angry energy and it probably isn't the
best thing for this situation but she's not happy and this is her
sanctum (lowercase s) and fuck anyone if they think they can tell her
how she should behave in her own place. She makes apologies for
nothing.
"I think it's a pretty damned good guess. You said he's
underground. You said that it's feeding off of him." It. Not her.
Claire is no longer a person to Alyssa, at least right now. Alyssa is
fairly certain that Claire isn't Claire anymore. "And I know spirits.
There are all sorts of different types and they all act differently, but
they have to be going back somewhere. That's where your pal and his
Consor were headed, to look at some kind of pollution."
The lake
isn't marked on the map on the wall that Grace is looking at. Alyssa
sweeps some folders off the coffee table to reveal the other map.
Chatfield State Park is where their eyes are likely immediately drawn,
with all the orange highlighting done to the water there.
"Five to five he and it are there. I'd bet what's left of my security deposit on it."
Ian Lai
Ian
leaned forward to look at the map, tilting his head lightly as he took
in the topography and the marks that Alyssa had made. If he really
wanted to, he could drive out there on his own. Perhaps for a moment he
even considered it - weighing the potential merits and flaws in his
head. But Alyssa knew how to deal with spirits. He didn't. It was as
simple as that.
"Confirmation would be preferable," Ian replied to
Grace. When he looked up, he eyed the ubiquitous laptop bag she carried
with her. "Are you okay to do this here?"
By 'this,' of course,
he meant whatever Effect she'd planned on trying. And he glanced at
Alyssa a moment later, as though to include her in the question. Because
this was her space. And perhaps he felt that this was the sort of thing
that one ought to get permission to do while in a stranger's home. (He
had an interesting sense of courtesy, Ian did.)
If Grace was ready, he'd hand her the quilt.
"I'm
guessing it found them there. The thing tasted like pollution when it
attacked me." He paused a moment before adding. "You think there's
anything left of Claire?"
Grace
Grace follows the
movement of Alyssa sweeping the folders off of the coffee table, and
notices the other map. The map with notes pertaining to this case.
"Under
the lake?" she says, and her eyes flicker to Ian. Maybe she shouldn't
have said that, because if his friend is truly underwater, then Sky is
probably long gone by now.
"I can try. If I'm not blocked, and if
Alyssa thinks it's okay for me to try to directly connect to this dude
from her apartment," she says, and it's a question posed more than a
statement. Connections can be traced to their source and used, even if
she tries like hell to be subtle about it.
"I could just try to get a general idea of where he is rather than attempt to pinpoint him, it might be safer."
Alyssa Solomon
"Do
whatever you're most comfortable with," she says with a shrug to
Grace. "If it tracks back here, I'll just kill it. A lot. Then burn
it, kill it again and burn it some more. Maybe piss on its festering
fuckin' corpse for good measure."
Ian asks about Claire's status, and she shrugs. "Claire may be alive still, and may be herself. It's possible." The word possible might as well have a technically
in front of it. "Spirits that come out of toxic places
however...they're not known for being gentle. If the chick really did
get one inside of her, then putting her six feet under is gonna be a
mercy because whatever's walking around in her skin is just defiling
everything. It's probably what killed Priscilla and frankly, we'd
better hope it was. What did this thing do when it attacked you?"
The
question is for Ian of course, a sudden turn from information into
questioning. "What did it look like, how did it attack you? Did it
look like Claire?"
Ian Lai
Under the lake?
Grace asked, and Ian shook his head. "No, he's in a room underground.
That's what he said, anyway. I had a dream about it. I think he was
trying to reach out to me."
He said all of this as though he was
talking about something far removed from him emotionally. A news story
he'd read online, or, like Alyssa, a case he was working on (except he
wasn't an investigator.) It would be easy to believe that he didn't
especially care about what happened to Claire or Sky. Except that he was
here, doing all of this.
To Alyssa, he said, "I didn't see it
then. Just felt it." He had to pause a moment to gather his thoughts -
to find a way to describe what it had done. "It's like a psychic
vampire. Leeching Life from everything it touches. That's what it took
from me. Heart's Blood." (And if Alyssa was familiar at all with the
workings of Prime magic, then she'd know what he meant by that.)
"That's what it's doing to Sky, too."
A beat.
"I'd
rather not kill Claire, if it can be avoided. But I'll do whatever we
need to do. Is there a way to make it leave her? I can be pretty damn
persuasive."
Grace
[Corr 2: Firewall (Correspondence ward). Diff 5 - 1 (taking time)]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (5, 9) ( success x 2 )
Grace
Grace
nods, first to Alyssa and then to Ian as she takes the quilt from him,
and goes to sit in a chair -- one from which she can see the map on the
table.
She pulls out the laptop and boots it up -- a thing it
accomplishes quickly. Then, there is Grace in her natural element, with
her face lit by pixels and her fingers to the keys.
The others
will feel it when she starts, her resonance sharp as she slices into the
source code of all things. The plan is to start with a firewall,
because safety first right? It's not just spirits who might want to
trace this. She's pretty sure Gadfly got caught because he loved to
watch over people's shoulders on a nigh constant basis.
The trick
to it is to only allow a small window -- a single port through which to
punch your own data through, denying all others access. And that single
port -- a one-way communication. She's going to connect a scrap of dead
skin or a subtle vibration woven into its threads to where it
originated.
"Shields up," she says, although she doesn't look up
from her screen or acknowledge anyone else is there. She could just as
easily be talking to herself.
Alyssa Solomon
She
frowns when Ian describes what the attack was like, continues pacing.
She is familiar with the term that he's talking about: Heart's Blood.
That makes her nod as she takes another drink off of her beer. The
feathery wings of her Resonance get a little bit more leathery, anger
rising to the surface more. This is the kind of shit she hates. This
is why she stands vigilant against spirits who would harm Sleepers, and
Mages too. And Mages who would harm Sleepers. And it angers her that
this has happened under her watch.
"It..." She sighs, stops herself. "Again, it's possible.
It depends on the spirit, and how deep a hold it has on her. I would
say that I'm not optimistic from what I'm hearing, but it is
conceivable." She sets the now-empty bottle down and rubs her wrists
against each other, scratching old and itchy wounds. "We also have to
consider the possibility that the spirits aren't alone. Priscilla was
stabbed, from what I got from the cops. Or at least, cut. Spirits
don't generally cut, they have other methods. Especially if it just
leeches life in the way you described; they doesn't sound like fucking
cutting. But that's still guesswork. There are more types of spirits
than their are types of porn online."
She lets Grace work her
thing. She knows now to interrupt. "Anything you know, man, I need to
know. I'm giving up a lot here, and I appreciate that you're sharing.
If there's anything else...tell me." It's not said out of a belief that
he's holding back, just in a way that says if he's omitted anything at
all, she needs to be aware.
Ian Lai
Ian
glanced at Grace when she spoke, but he didn't interrupt her focus.
With his senses alive as they were now, he could both feel and see the
working of Grace's will as it coalesced around her. For a moment he
watched it, as though curious, before turning his attention back to
Alyssa.
The allusion to internet porn got a slight smirk out of him.
"I
saw Claire in the dream, right at the end. But it wasn't her. She had
green algae spores on her skin, like she'd been infected. That's...
really all I know."
He didn't seem to be lying when he said that.
"What else do you know? How high of a threat level do you think we're walking into?"
Grace
[Corr 2, Prime 1 -- Tracing the resonance of the quilt to... where it will lead. Diff 5 - 1 (taking time), spending WP!]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Grace
And
now, for the trickier part -- connecting a piece of Sky to Sky himself.
All Mages leave their mark on the world, and all people leave their
detritus behind as well. The latter, she decides, is going to be harder
in this case -- more than one person can use a quilt, after all, and
there would be no way for her to determine which bit of hair or protein
belonged to Sky at one point.
So, the resonant connection this
quilt has with its owner is going to have to be tracked. It's much like a
vibration, really. When people say they've got 'good vibes' about a
place or a person, they're on to something there. But Grace can do
amazing things with a waveform equation -- things the 'good vibes'
people wouldn't begin to understand.
On her screen, she's got a
map display up of her own, centered first around the apartment, and
hopefully it shifts and zooms itself to the right place. Maybe it's that
lake, maybe somewhere else...
Alyssa Solomon
"Threat
level?" She shrugs. "Somewhere between Moderate Risk and We Might As
Well Be Trying to Breaking Into a Nephandic Laybrinth. To be fair, it's
probably a lot closer to Moderate Risk though. If it were too powerful
than we'd already be dead. In truth, I'm not even 100% convinced it's a
toxin spirit; it could be some sort of nature spirit that is simply
reacting to the alleged dumping and is trying to suck down all the
magical life it can find in order to live.
"And everything I know, you know."
Grace
Grace starts to tell the others that her trace is indeed pointing at a lake, but only gets so far as "Yeah, it does seem like--" before she abruptly cuts off. A futile attempt to shut her laptop screen ensues, before she freezes and stares through her monitor.
A few seconds pass, and in those seconds her eyes flit around in their sockets like they're trying to escape. Her eyelids grow heavy and droop slowly though her body stays rooted in place.
When she comes back to, her voice is a tiny, weary thing. "South Platte Reservoir. He is in an underground room. He is still alive."
For certain definitions of alive, perhaps.
"I'm sorry, Ian. He looks..." she says, and falters, her head lolling. She shuts her laptop slowly. How do you tell someone that perhaps their friend would be better off dead? "He has roots growing inside him."
"There are others. Other people. Animals. Crawling with roots. It saw me, but I shook it off. I need a nap."
With that, she puts her laptop down on the floor, curls her body up into Alyssa's chair, and starts doing just that.
Ian Lai
Roots, she said. Sky had roots growing inside of him.
Ian looked up when Grace's eyes went blank, and his own manner grew still and alert - waiting for further signs of trouble. Seconds passed like that - in charged, weighted silence - and when Grace snapped back to life, Ian let out an almost imperceptible breath.
But then she told him what she'd seen. And Ian? Did not react to that at all. Just looked at her with this clear and focused gaze.
After a few moments, he said. "Thanks for your help. I owe you one." (And he meant it. Ian wasn't the sort to offer favors lightly.) Then he turned his attention to Alyssa and said, "We need to figure out a plan of attack. First, how to get this thing out of Sky and Claire, if it's possible. Second, how to kill it. I'm going to see what I can find at the library. I'll call you if I get anything useful."
He stood up then, and made his way to the door. "Need a ride back?" he asked Grace. But she was already half-asleep, and whether or not she roused herself enough to respond, it seemed pretty clear that she wasn't really interested in moving at that precise moment. So Ian let her be. And unless Alyssa had anything else to discuss, he'd show himself out.
