brickyardbabe
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Noir laughed out loud. I’m going to need a little more than that. I’m not giving them a vessel without knowing what I’ll get in the bargain, especially when I don’t know what sort of vessel I’ll need. Spirit pacts, she reflected, were one of the strangest parts of her business. Not because the price was always strange and often unpleasant; that was a fact of life in many professions. No, it was because spirits were so alien. What they needed might not have any reflection in rational thought, and how they chose to go about getting it was often like the instructions for a lunatic scavenger hunt as written by a psychopath with a fondness for riddles. Why one couldn’t simply tell her, ‘I need x, and I’m willing to give you y and z for it’ was just beyond her.
To the room at large, she said, “Speak plainly. Appear before me, or tell me how to appear before you that we might converse.” She doubted it would have any effect, but it was worth a try. If they were something akin to a ghost, they’d at least have a modicum of understanding. So would a shedim, for that matter. Those vile things were quick learners, and many of the surviving ones had been amongst humans for years or decades.
Turning her attention back to the head, Noir told it, “Great, a sorcerer and a gearhead vampire, and a rigger with milspec weapons. My day just keeps getting better and better. How did I get so goddamn lucky?” She sighed and pressed her fingertips to her temples again. “Alright, friend. You’ve held up your end of the bargain. If you would tell me more, I would hear it, but otherwise you have given me sufficient currency to secure my aid. What can I do to ease your passing?” As she spoke, she watched the head carefully, trying to read its aura. She wasn’t really interested in helping a ganger who would bring a nest of vampires a woman and her children, but she wanted to know the answer. Noir wasn’t convinced that the thing talking to her was the ganger, rather than something puppeting it with access to his memories, and what it asked for might be telling.
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“Thank you.” Noir told the head. “You’re being quite helpful, for a dead man.” She rapped a manicured nail against her teeth as she thought, but not about the ork. She was wondering what knowledge was on offer. She wouldn’t release the crawling chaos on a whim, but a few small, wicked spirits she might chance, if the price was right.
To her fallen, she said, Excellent. Any with useful knowledge, come forth. Perhaps a bargain can be struck.. She wasn’t worried about being duped. It would be a rare spirit that could hide its nature from her and her choir, and she wasn’t going to let anything free that she couldn’t obliterate if it stepped out of line.
To the head, Noir remarked, “Two, one hurt. So then, not regenerating.” She frowned. “A young vampire. Interesting.” She cocked her head. “Anything else you care to share? Since you’re being so cooperative? Anything about the vampires, the garage, the drones? And most importantly, do you know anything about the orb you were to recover?”
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Noir’s eyes narrowed, and she splayed her fingers, a corona of violet power flickering along the long, pale digits. “If you think being dead puts you out of my reach, you are sadly mistaken.” She told the head, but her tone was distant. It was that damned scritching in her ears, somewhere between a whisper and the sound of a droning cicada. If she could just make it out…
Noir clenched her jaw, furious. Fucking bloodsuckers, ruining everywhere they nested. She would make them pay, oh yes, and their screams would resound for kilometers as she burnt them to ash, one agonizing centimeter at a time. She’d make them watch each other die, tearing their fangs out and crucifying them with silver and wood before she enacted her vengeance and the vengeance for all those they had wronged. They wouldn’t just die, they would suffer!
Noir shook her head, as if trying to dislodge a fly. Inwardly, she asked the spirit, what is that? Speak, translate, use me as a locus. I would hear more, you who are here-and-not. To the head, she asked, “How many vampires? And do they report to something greater? A megacorp or a syndicate perhaps, or is this a rogue nest? They got you killed, sending you after a shadowrunner team. THe least I can do is ease your rest and get you your revenge, but in order to do that, I’m going to need what information you can give me.”
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“I…I..” Calista stammered, shaking in place. By now, she knew the signs of a breakdown, and she concentrated on fighting it, swaying for a moment as she fought the fear back down. She took a deep breath and reached up to place her hands on Robyn’s arms. “I guess it is.” Calista admitted quietly. “I’m scared, Robyn. I love you, but I left you. You have a family in Britain, and I don’t have anything but pain. I don’t…I don’t know what to do.” Her voice was choked, and her grip on Robyn tightened, as if afraid to let her go for fear that she would be gone again. “For the last six months, my entire driving force has been to get back to you, even before I remembered who you were and what we had. I’m terrified of losing you, I’m terrified of losing us, and I didn’t stop to think if…” She trailed off, trembling. “I didn’t stop to think at all, I guess. Is there even a place for me in your life?” She raised one finger. “Think before you answer. I know that years have gone by. I know that while you never stopped loving me, never stopped looking, your life has moved on from what we were. Just look at you!” She gestured about herself. “This is your life and I’m…poison. I know you would risk it for me, but can you? Can you really? What about Melissa, or all the other baggage I bring? Can you bring your daughters into this, or are we doomed to this? To brief moments together, always loving but always passing each other to protect those which need protecting?”
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Noir blinked as her lips moved at the behest of her- apparently temporarily suborned- spirit, but she committed the phrase to memory. She’d want to know its language, if nothing else, and the incantation might prove useful.
It talked then, acting as though it was still the ork from whence the head had come. Well, wasn’t that interesting? As a rule, ghosts were still the province of horror movies and scary stories, not reality. Oh, sure, a violent or sudden death could leave an imprint of the person behind, but it was at the scene of death and it wasn’t really the person, just a faint imprint going through the motions. This probably wasn’t that. The thing animating the head was too cognizant, even snarky. And it was conversing, not wailing and moaning or questioning its death. So what was it? Something animating the head, sure, but that left a lot of ground. It could be a shedim, some kind of possessor spirit, an astral entity, or gods knew what else.
“Yeah, I am. And I didn’t stand you up.” Noir said, hunkering down to eye level with the head and sitting on her heels. “I fully intended to make good. Its that damned team I’m stuck with. Buncha violent assholes who would rather shoot than talk. If they’d told me, I would’ve warned you. For what its worth, I’m sorry.” Her voice turned flat. “Now that we’ve got the preliminaries aside, what the hell is happening here? What are you, really?”
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This was a very bad idea.
Like, a really, spectacularly terrible idea.
But what did she have? Her daughter was dead, in the worst possible way. Her husband was gone, to a life of goodness and grace and three children with another woman, having put her and Sabrina in the past. She was a drunk, working an unpleasant job with people she either didn’t know, didn’t trust, or didn’t like, all because of some last spark of nobility that even the cheap bourbon and the nightmares and the killing couldn’t quite crush. She had a car that reminded her of every good thing she’d ever lost, an apartment in a shit town that leaked when it rained and turned into an oven when it didn’t, and just enough power to lead her to the next catastrophe.
She was dying. By centimeters, sure, but it was getting harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning, and she started drinking earlier and earlier, and she just didn’t have the will to fight it anymore. So what if the creature speaking to her was going to violate her mind? What could it do that she hadn’t already done to herself? Give her more nightmares? Warp her personality? Hell, kill her?
Did it matter?
Noir had always been good at doing what needed to be done, even at her worst. And with the end of the world touching the horizon, well, this needed to be done.
Didn’t it?
Noir stopped and considered. Would the coming of the crawling chaos or whatever the hell was on the other side of that orb be so bad? It was a strange thought, and she wasn’t sure if it originated with her or with the thing breaching her mind, but she considered it either way. Sure, it might mean the end of everything, but what if it didn’t? The world would change. The devils would be let free, but what would They do? Would They simply kill and kill and kill? Or would they alter the world to suit Their eldritch needs? No more vampires preying on helpless women. No more horror in back alleys and dingy apartments. No more sleepless nights with a bottle and what she had lost. Would that be so bad?
Noir shook her head, but the thought remained.
Yes, it would be bad.
No, it wouldn’t be.
This was crazy.
This was rational.
This was madness.Opener…closer.
In a sudden rush, before she could get her metaphorical feet under her, Noir snapped out, “Tell me then! I consent!”
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In all her years as a mage, hunter, and P.I., Noir had seem some creepy, awful drek. Toxic spirits, vampire covens, the endlessly creativity cruelty of the mark one metahuman…many things had the potential to send a normal person screaming to the nuthouse. But nothing had ever compared to a channeled spirit talking without her command. She felt her lips move, heard her own voice- a dead, dry, rasping voice, but unmistakably hers- resonate throughout the chamber like dead leaves in a wind.
Then all was silent, and Noir was afraid.
Noir put her hands to her temples to quell the spike of pain that had been driven through her skull by exposure to this place. She was mildly surprised to find herself on her knees, and a brush with her nose left blood on the side of her hand. She inspected it with faint wonder, then looked around. Whatever had come had passed, and left her none the wiser for its leaving. All she’d gotten was a headache and a new, horrible experience. Her eyes narrowed.
Well, frag that sideways.
Noir was scared. Truly, deeply afraid, in a way she hadn’t been since her daughter was taken. It was the fear not of death but of ending, when one’s whole world, whole existence was in peril. Her hands shook and her breathing was rapid, and she resisted the urge to pull all her myriad spirits to her in this dry, horrid place and stand before the altar with an army at her back. Every instinct was screaming at her to flee, to drop the job, run out into the dawn, and never look back. This was bad, in a heretofore unseen range of color and texture, and as she climbed to her feet she almost collapsed, finding that her knees had turned to jelly.
But she didn’t get where she was through fear.
Noir had built a life for herself despite everything. It wasn’t a glamourous life, wasn’t even a good life. It was fraught with dangers and long nights and regrets, and the hatred of people who couldn’t ever understand. But, gods damn it all, it was hers. No monster or spirit, no matter how ancient and wicked would take that from her. Noir steeled her resolve, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, and looked at the altar with a grim smile. Her shaking hands steadied and her legs firmed. As before, as a hundred times before, she was still in control.
Noir picked up the knapsack she’d been lugging since the go-gangers, the ones with the heads. She’d sussed out enough from the good doctor’s notes to have at least a very basic idea of what she was dealing with. Not enough to fight it effectively, but enough to take a few small, simple steps, and wasn’t that always the way with leads?
Noir withdrew a head, the ork’s, and set it on the altar, precisely where the orb should have gone. Then she wiped her bloodied hand on the waxy forehead and stepped back. This might not work, but there was no one around to see her look foolish if the attempt failed. She waited a few seconds, and then turned her dual-natured eyes on the head and the upright stone circle beyond it, and when she spoke it was in a stentorian, commanding tone. “Speak, then, if you would have me listen. Tell me of this key and this gate.”
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@adamu Oh, no question it’s a bad idea. But to steal Preston’s phrase, Noir is cutting the gordian knot. The team has too many questions and not enough answers, and while this may have a deleterious effect on Noir’s sanity, I think I’d prefer to have a character with more knowledge as opposed to more stability.
Maybe its just because Christmas has only just passed, but with what Noir is doing, this is all I can think of: Cheerful, but horrifying.
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Calista gave Robyn a long, level look. “You…collect wayward girls around university age.” She said slowly. She blinked a few times, processing, and she chewed the corner of one lip thoughtfully before stopping when she realized it was revealing one fang. “I cannot help but notice that I fit that profile, dear heart.” Calista pointed out to Robyn. “Am I another of your foundlings, a project made good that you fell in love with?” It wasn’t the most delicate way to ask, certainly, but Calista was suddenly uncertain. This was new information, or at least information new to her, and it cast a different light on what she had with the blind elf. Was she simply the elf’s first project? Or her last? Was she…good enough? These other girls…they sounded so well adjusted, and smart, and successful, and they shared some similarities with Calista herself. What did this mean, if anything?
At heart, Calista was still desperate for approval, and it warred terribly with her desire to be her own woman, twisting her face into an expression of unease.
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Noir parted ways with Al and the rest of the team, heading back toward the farmhouse. Once she was a short ways away from the vehicles and the cluster of mercenaries, she stopped and sang, an old folk song about home, and loss, and loneliness, and better days. It helped her focus, and she reached out and grasped another spirit, pulling it to herself. She didn’t bother masking or hiding what she was doing, and this spirit was every bit as powerful as the one that had just departed. She wasn’t in the mood to take chances, either with the orb or with her “fellows,” and doing her “a god am I” impression would serve her well enough on both fronts. The massive fire spirit came as before, and while the wave of fatigue was stronger this time, it still wasn’t enough to keep her form her tasks. The lassitude settled into her bones only for a second as her fallen came in response to her call, and she stepped into the magical nightmare’s welcoming embrace, feeling its strength and vitality become her own. Her eyes flashed, flames swirled around her body, and then she was Noir once more.
It would serve.
Noir checked the farmhouse briefly, nodding to Maria but not really seeing her. It was just a reflex. If there were blood or bodies, she would have stopped. Anything else was beneath her notice right now. Being near the farmhouse did allow her to orient herself, however, taking in the scenery as captured by the pictures of the outside of the Orb’s first resting place, and she made her way toward the vile artifact’s crypt, telling herself there was no danger. Of course there was no danger. The place was old, disused. The orb was gone. It was just a room now. Right?
Right?
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Sleep? What’s that? Can I eat it?
She’ll get a couple of hours when she comes back from the orb’s crypt, unless being out there eats up all of her time. Once there, she’ll head inside, but I stopped before that point in case @Jack_Spade wants me to make perception tests or describe the outside for some detail I can completely overlook, that will undoubtedly be vitally important later.
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Alessandra rippled back into visibility a few steps away from Al as Sian walked off, stopping to admire the naked vampire’s backside as it disappeared back up the path before looking at Al. “Nicely done.” She complimented him. “You played mauling victim #1 from an old flatvid perfectly!” Her tone was amused, but it was gentle mirth, not meant as an insult, and she smiled as she said it.
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Calista’s heart soared, at both the casual invitation and the idea of seeing Britain again. “I’d like that, I really, really would. It’d do Fox some good, too. I don’t think she’s ever traveled except for work or fleeing the authorities. Her tale is as strange and convoluted as yours and mine are, I think.” Calista was silent for a moment as she considered what Robyn had said. Kids? Grace? Had Robyn mentioned them before? Her memory was mostly back in place, but there were holes, and she was patching them as fast as she could, but everything was still so raw. Finally, she remarked, “I saw the concert. I was in a box seat, stage right. You were wonderful, of course. As always.” She smiled, raising Robyn’s hand to her lips so that the other woman could feel the expression. Then, “The kids? I’m sorry, darling, but my memory has a few empty spots yet, a legacy of what was done to me. I don’t remember you talking much about your family either.”
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Hooray! Welcome back, Mercy!
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@Adamu Noir did, though she was suitably horrified that she might not have been paying too much attention to the bottom. Speaking of which, she’s going to go and check out the place where the artifact was unearthed while Al works on his truck, unless @Jack_Spade has any objection to her checking?
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Calista chuckled, scanning the room, but she wasn’t able to see her friend, or at least not able to pick her out of the crowd in her working guise. “Well, she’s around here someplace, so I’m sure that could be arranged.” Calista said, taking Robyn’s hand for a moment. “And yeah, the garage is right on the edge of Puyallup. You can’t miss it, the sign is two meters high. And purple. And on fire.” She did her smile and nod thing a few more times, careful not to show off her fangs before glancing over at Robyn. “So what brought you to the Emerald City? I mean, I came here because every ‘runner does, eventually, so it seemed as good a place for a new start as any. But you, you were established in London, had the favor of Earl’s House. Hell, you had friends and a life, a job and a bookstore. Why are you suddenly in Seattle?”
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“To be antimatter, we’d have to destroy each other.” Noir said flatly. “Not going to happen. There’d be a survivor.” Noir looked out the window at the steel light of pre-dawn. “I wish she’d just grow a pair and take a swing, then I could cream her and we’d be done with it.” The sorceress said with a sigh. “It’s amazing, I’ve never held anyone in such incredible contempt in so short a time before. I know she’s your friend and all, Al, and I don’t expect you to agree with me, but I think she is absolutely one of the lowest forms of life there is, unthinking, violent, self-absorbed, convinced of her own superiority, bossy, high-handed, and demanding that other people treat her like the fragging princess that she isn’t.” Noir’s hands were clenching into fists, and there was the acrid scent of smoke and ash rising up from her skin. “I think she’s scum, Al. This situation is dire, and its only that sad fact that’s staying my hand from any number of courses of action. I think that on a job as delicate as dealing with an artifact like this orb, her way of thinking has absolutely no place, especially when she’s one trying to give the orders. She’s going to get someone else, someone like Jazz or Preston, killed. And if she starts shooting at me like that again, pulls another stunt like that again, with no warning, I will attack her.”
They pulled into the farm, and Noir said, “Frankly, I think your suggestion has merit. I want to be around her like I want a cerebral hemorrhage. But to stay behind would be to compromise my job. I said I’d kill the vampires, and I meant it. Now, if you guys are going to deliver the orb first, then I’ve got some time and can meet you there. If you’re headed to the garage first, then…well, I don’t know. The only word I might accept about the vampires being dead is yours.” Noir got out of the Gaz as the first rays of sun broke the horizon, and her spirit departed. She considered summoning another one, but she still had the ones on call if she needed them. They would serve for now. She lit another cigarette and came around the Gaz. “Though, you guys are looking pretty fragging haggard. Might want to get some sleep before you do anything.”
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Alessandra had pulled a fast, quiet fade the second they had started talking about evading the patrol and decided against flight or tunneling. She was just…gone, between one second and the next. No chanting, no gestures, just disappeared. A few seconds later, there was a bubble of silence around her as well, muffling her footsteps. She may not have been much for woodscraft- oh sure, she could move quietly, but she didn’t know how to step through twigs without breaking them or that other stereotypically elven drek- but that didn’t mean Art couldn’t compensate for what nature had not provided. She followed Sian, skirting around the patrol, keeping an eye on the confrontation as best she could through the foliage, in case things went south and she needed to atomize some poor slot.
When she got Shrike’s message, she smiled grimly. She could do a bear. She’d lived in the blood wood. Bears, she knew. Alessandra closed her eyes for a second, pulling her magic together, and created the illusion of the biggest bear she could imagine. It wasn’t quite a Shardik, but only because she didn’t know if those things occurred around her, but it was huge, and the roar was a deep, bass sound felt almost as much as heard. She added rustling and the snapping of twigs and branches to convey the illusion of movement. The illusion was a goodly ways off from the little meeting of minds happening out there, so it was doubtful they’d see it well, if at all, but as she strove for verisimilitude, she made the illusory foliage around it shift in response to its equally illusory movement.
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Calista laughed lightly. “I think you misunderstand, love.” Calista said, relishing the word. “Fox and I are not related. I first met her in Tel Aviv six months ago, when my memories started to come back. I was being…taken care of? Held prisoner? Something. Anyway, I woke up to some ass hat trying to make me over into his good little shadowrunner slitch, and after one too many presumptions and him calling me a whore one too many times, I decided to tell him to frag off.” Calista stopped her story for a moment as an immaculately dressed woman in a twinset and pearls came up to gush about Robyn’s playing. She stayed silent, curtsied when she was introduced, and when the woman moved away again, Calista continued, “You know me, I don’t like being told what to do outside of the bedroom. While I was leaving, I met Foxglove at the border. She had wheels, and I had a way through the checkpoint. We’ve been together ever since, done a few runs, became close.” She stopped and put her hand on the small of RObyn’s back, her expression suddenly chagrined. “Not close-close. She’s hot, but she doesn’t swing my way and I’m not inclined to try. Besides, I was pining after you. No, we’re more like sisters, which is what I mean by family. She taught me to drive, taught me guns, and I’ve been teaching her spirit lore and arcana and the like. We have a place together, a garage. Its been…nice.”
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Calista shrugged one shoulder, smiling and nodding in all the right places as they exited the stage to mingle with the crowd. Switching to Russian, she said, “A run. A simple snatch-and-grab job, nothing too impressive, no pain involved. It seems that the client wants to make the target something of a better offer. It doesn’t sit quite right with me, but I’ve got friends- hell, family, really- to think of, and a job set up by a fixer like Torrent is worth a lot to my street cred. I’m new in the biz, and the only high-profile run I’ve done was down in the Caribbean league.” Calista kissed Robyn on the cheek. “Like I said, its nothing major, not this time. And I’m hardly the only one working it.”