[Syrgja] Sunday night is cold, almost bitter. The weatherman on Channel 11 is predicting frost overnight, and Chicagoans are back in their winter things. Mid-January, a forty degree day would have meant heatwave. College students with shorts on under their pull-over anoraks. Ultimate frisbee games in shirt-sleeves on the quads. Homeless men eschewing the shelters for a night in favor of drinking industrial size bottles of Popov vodka or their favorite mouthwash from the Dollar Tree in the spindly shadows of the bare-armed trees in Chicago's many derelict parks.
After an April that felt like a June, though, the city's residents have grown soft. They're bundled up tonight, the Sunday drinkers, men who've come to fight over whether to watch the early baseball season or the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Women who've come in hopes of making up for Saturday night's disappointments, the would-haves and could-haves. Groups of friends meeting up to savor the last bitter dregs of the weekend, before Monday comes.
Sunday - late afternoon into evening - Trent threw the same guy out of MacReedy's three times. Twice before the sun had lanced the horizon - when the crowd was looser and less engaged, not yet coalesced around the televisions, drinking alone, wishing for a smoke, complaining sotto vocce about the health department as they cut out toward the patio to have one under cover, shivering in the late April chill. Once after, when he snuck in through the back door, when the sous chef was carting a load of trash out to the dumpster, and made his way back to the bar to ooze up beside the couple he had been bothering earlier, muttering about Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, watching them with the sort of single minded attention that puts men on edge and makes women call the police.
The third time he looked at Trent that way, directly in the eyes. His own were dark, but ringed, the pupils enormous, barely a thread of iris showing around them. Even his coat felt oily under Trent's hand as he took him by the arm, pulled him away from the bar, dragged him out to the door, shoved him out onto the dark, quiet street, on the dark, cold night.
"They took it," he said, the oily stranger, shaking. Maybe it was the drugs. Whatever you take that makes your pupils devour your eyes. Maybe it was grief. Maybe it was rage. Once, before Trent closed him without. "They took it all from me."
The stranger, we'll call him John, fixed Trent with a look directly in the eyes, his rat-face stiff, his skin white as the first shock of morning light against the sky.
"And I'm going to take it back."
- and was then gone. He didn't sneak back in. He didn't try. The atmosphere in the bar changed, eased. People laughed more brightly. People laughed. The games continued. The Cubs lost. The Blackhawks were winning when his evening relief showed up, late - to cover the last rowdy six hours of the night's work. 1-0. The cheer with the first goal was an electric thing through the crowd.
It was easy, then, to forget John.
Until, walking back to the carpark at the corner of Nash and 11th, he skirts one of the ubiquitous human-shaped lumps on the city's sidewalk. And this lump, looks up, round-eyed, white faced, shaking - reaches out to grab his ankle, the cuff of his pants leg. Says: "Spare some change?" - with a sort of sneer written into the fabric of the words, visceral, angry.
[Trent Brumby] It had been a trying night. By the third time that he had thrown out John, Trent was really starting to get impatient. Most guys, if they've drank a lot, might push their luck to twice, but this guy had gone in the back and through the kitchen, which had really grated on Trent in that way where the hand is about two seconds from dialing the police. Not that the police did anything around here anyway. They were always half an hour late, if they showed up at all. It was his job, his duty, to make sure that trouble here wasn't caused and everything ran smoothly. It wasn't easy though. This was the World of Darkness.
It had been rough enough that he wanted a cigarette, except he didn't have any on him since he had quit, was quitting or in the process of. A hand had patted his jacket pocket to check for them, realizing only then that there were none. He huffed out a heavy sigh and muttered to himself on his way to the car.
Rounding one of the many frequents on the streets, he finds his progress halted by the reaching of a hand. The trousers of his pants are black, relatively clean aside from a few spills of beer, the socks beneath black too, cotton, tucked into some lace up shoes. He looks down at the bum, brows cutting into a deep frown before a scowl crosses his mouth. He jerks his foot back with a hostile: "Get the fuck off, man." Clearly his patience is worn today.
[Syrgja] "Hey," the vagrant says, back. "Hey hey hey." He is excited; that's in his voice, too - charged beneath the anger. He's looking up now, lunging forward after the foot jerked out of his grasp, lurching upward, his mouth cutting wider. What he's wearing is - an oily old trench coat, and underneath it a suit. It would've been fine, once, but now the fine wool is matted with filth and stinks of cheap booze and body odor. Stinks of something else, too - a not-quite vegetal rot. Failure.
"You. I - I - I - I know you, man." Black hair, dark brown maybe, shining with grease. It hasn't been cut in a year, and hasn't been washed in weeks or months. Standing, the stranger is several inches shorter than Trent and far less broad. He's fearless, though - grinning to reveal a mouthful of teeth, some yellowed gristle still stuck between the incisors and canine. The spark of recognition grows brighter, intensifies. "I - I - I - I've been waiting for you, man." Shooting a glance back down the alley, over his shoulder, " - hey man! It's one of them! Can you believe the luck?"
He stalks closer, shadowing Trent's wake. And there's more - something dark, shadowed in the alley. Down a good twenty feet, behind the bulk of a dumpster - moving.
[Trent Brumby] "You don't know me," he tells the man, even if he recognizes him. It's generally a rule of thumb never to admit to knowing a crazy, grinning, filthy person that seems eager with anger and vengeance. In fact it's better just to encourage their craziness by denying all sorts of rational knowledge, while trying to get the hell out of dodge.
As John advances on him, though, Trent is scanning him for weapons - again. A shard of glass, a used syringe a broken piece of metal, anything potentially more deadly then fists and feet. He was in the process of halting, standing up to meet this filthy mongrel with some of his own violence, when there's movement down the alleyway.
A quick look, a dart of eyes, while trying to keep John in his sight - since he's the immediate threat, has him note something moving near a dumpster before he's looking directly back to John. "Listen, buddy, back off." It's the last warning.
[Ini: +5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Syrgja] John +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10
[Syrgja] The Thing in the Alley
+5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Syrgja] "No, man. No. I - I - I - remember now." The filthy stranger says, getting closer to Trent, his stench a near physical thing around him, his eyes huge, his body lean, attenuated, shaking beneath the coat and suit, which are now two sizes too large for him. He has no obvious weapons. No syringe. No glass - just a pair of empty hands spasming at the ends of his arms, just a shaking sort of need to him, just those half-devoured eyes. "I need you man." Quieter that.
"God help me, I need something." Quieter still, shot through with desperation.
[The Thing in the Alley: declares - hanging out back here in the shadows! He's two full actions away from the street.]
[Syrgja] Order!
[John 14
Trent: 10
Thing: 8]
[Trent Brumby] Trent doesn't deal with stench in his face very well. Thrice tonight he has grabbed this oily jacket and thrown it out of a bar not far from where they are, and this fourth time he doesn't grab, but shoves him back a few paces. "You need to get help," he tells him, ready to walk away, retreat. He really doesn't want a fight.
[declare: shove John and walk away.]
[Syrgja] [John: Mind blast Trent!]
[Syrgja] 4
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 10 (Failure at target 6) [WP]
[Trent Brumby] Dex + braw - shoving John
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Syrgja] John: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Syrgja] The filthy stranger leans forward, swaying - gives Trent a vicious little grin, those yellow teeth, circles closer and something snaps in him, a the dilated pupils go briefly pinpoint, the air sings with the promise of something black, bleak - but the kinsman is unaffected by it. Trent gives him a shove, then - the stranger stumbles backwards, but absorbs the blow and keeps his feet.
Breathing harder, he rounds on Trent again -
[Thing: HURRY UP DAMNIT. Begins walking slowly forward.]
[Trent Brumby] [Declare: Punching John.]
[Syrgja] [John: Mind Blast Trent!]
[Syrgja] Mind Blast!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Syrgja] It happens again, that change in the shape of the strange man's pupils - just a stutter step, they are huge, and then they are pinpoint, and then they are huge again, like a black hole. This time, the air around Trent seems to swim with fire; nothing has happened but everything has happened - the sensation is abrupt and overwhelming. Trent collapses to the ground, writhing in pain. Every nerve ending is on fire. This is what is must feel like to be thrust into the sun, to be electrocuted and remain alive, nerves singing with molten energy - the worst pain he has ever felt, everywhere and nowhere, raw and scorching, a livid, living thing to bright and terrible it is all he can do to breathe.
The world dissolves into the immediate moments, and they come in flashes, as if illuminated by a strobe bulb. The thing in the alley stops when Trent falls, shuffles back to its shelter behind the dumpster. The rat-faced man though - looser now, listless in a way that he was not before leans over the Trenth, his filthy breath a rotten wash, leans close to see the agony in the kinsman's eyes - and grins, rotten teeth, gristle stuck between them, flesh-and-bone-colored.
Then, still on his haunches, he hooks his arms underneath Trent's shoulders and starts dragging him toward the alley. It feels as if Trent's arms were being pull off at the socket. The slightest touch sends spasms of agony electric through his body.
[Trent Brumby] There is nothing that can prepare him for that. It's nothing he has ever felt in his life, experienced, or even imagined could happen. Later, maybe, if he survives it, he'll think on how the guy didn't even touch him. He expected a fist fight, and he got nothing but a look - a look that changed everything.
He's sure he screamed. He's sure there was an agonizing sound that ripped from his throat, like nothing he's ever made before, something primal in the way pain can only make it. But maybe nothing came past his lips, maybe nothing at all.
It's just all consuming pain that leeches him of any movement and thought.
[Syrgja] The night is quiet around them. Just the harshness of Trent's breathing, the shuffle-step of the stranger as he struggles to drag his prey back toward his companion. The stranger grunts, groans from the strain. He wanted something smaller - he wanted something slighter. Something softer. One of those others inside the bar. One of those others, and he is cursing under his breath as drags Trent, muttering something about them and hunger, about loss, about - words Trent cannot hear through the spasms of agony in which he finds himself.
Instead, what Trent knows is:
he wakes up again. He comes back to consciousness, the pain receding as abruptly as it enveloped him. He comes back to consciousness, and he is lying on his back inside the mouth of the alley, halfway toward the dumpster where the shadow-thing hid, looking up at the slice of the sky between the buildings, swimming orange with the reflected light of the city. He comes back to consciousness, the sound of fighting behind him and when he turns - when he looks - he sees:
A lumpen once-human Thing, misshapen, with grayed skin like the flesh of a mummified elephant and a strange second lump, shrunken, like a huge misplaced goiter on the shoulder beside its head - mouthful of teeth, claws jutting sharp from its otherwise human hands clear abruptly in the light coalescing in the center of the alley - squaring off against a monstrous wolf, gray furred, slaver stringing from its maw, snarling some challenge back at the fallen Thing.
His own tormenter has left off the work of dragging him into the alley, and turned his back to Trent. Now, John Doe is casting about for a weapon - any weapon - to employ in the battle in front of him.
[Syrgja] [Kora: +8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
to Syrgja
[Syrgja] Thing +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
to Syrgja
[Syrgja] John +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
to Syrgja
[Trent Brumby] Its like learning to breathe again, that first intake of air that he's conscious on. Slow realization dawns on him, of where he is, of what those sounds are nearby and what had happened. Rolling from his back, he's moving to push up from his stomach towards his feet, testing the way his muscles work with the effort.
He sees, further down the alley, the fight of a wolf and a thing that his eyes can't quite make sense of. But John, he can see him, and the search for something. Shaking his hand, as though waking it up, he soon clenches the fist, unclenches and approaches.
[Declare: Beating John from behind. Aint got no honour.]
[Trent Brumby] [Ambush: Dex (no stealth) ]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Trent Brumby] [Punch: Dex + Braw - head-shot.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]
[Trent Brumby] [Damage: Punch]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 4)
[Syrgja] Soak! - head shot.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Sorrow: 13
Thing: 10
Trent: 10 **precedes John b/c higher dex/wits score.
John: 10
[John - 1a. turn around! 1b. punch!]
[Trent Brumby] [Declare: Punch John, again.]
[Syrgja] [Thing: 1a. claw! 1b. claw!]
[Sorrow: 1 WP Resist Pain. 1a. Bite; 1b. Bite; Rage 1: Bite; Rage 2: Bite ]
[Syrgja] Ancestors!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]
to Syrgja
[Syrgja] Sorrow 1a. Bite -2
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 8, 10 (Failure at target 5)
[Syrgja] 1b. Bite -3
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]
[Syrgja] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Thing soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 3, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Syrgja] Thing 1a. claw! -2 for split, -1 for wounds
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Syrgja] Thing 1b. claw! -3 split, -1 wounds
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Syrgja] Thing: damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Sorrow: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] Punching John; Dex + Bra
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4)
[Trent Brumby] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Syrgja] Sorrow rage: 1.
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[Syrgja] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 8)
[Syrgja] Rage 2: +1 dif for changing actions, -2 for stunned, -2 for back attack. Min dif three.
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 3)
[Syrgja] Damage:
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] Punching John, again. Dex + Brawl
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 4)
[Trent Brumby] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Syrgja] The fight is blisteringly fast. Trent wakens, pushes himself up from the cold asphalt, beneath the cold spring sky - and launches himself at the rat-faced stranger in the filthy, too-large suit from behind. He has the advantage of surprise, pummels the man about the head - and hits him again before he can turn, leaving him reeling, struggling to remain standing.
Further down, in front of the dumpster - the inhuman thing - with its slack and sagging second head, its vicious claws protruding from the ends of its gray human hands charges at the direwolf, just scoring its hide at the shoulder with one of the claws. The beast launches itself at the thing, misses once, then seizes the thing in its jaws, tearing. Again she surges forward, faster than the eye can follow - rends the Thing asunder, leaving it a sagging sack of corrupt flesh, the viscera spilling from the stomach forward, steaming in the cold night. The beast shakes, a spray of blood from its maw - and charges forward again - somehow failing to seize and tear apart the rat-faced man. Instead, Trent punches him again. The blow feels off, doesn't have that solid crack of connection - but it is enough to send the rat-faced man sprawling unconscious on the pavement, face slack, tongue fat, lolling in his open mouth.
The massive wolf, flanks heaving, pads over the unconscious body of the rat-faced man and calmly - rips out his throat.
[Trent Brumby] Too quick to really think, just react, Trent is left looking at the large wolf that tears out a throat, leaving blood to leak on the asphalt of the alleyway. His mind is still catching up to him, the way everything had happened, the details still just flickers of images in his mind and that memory of pain far too fresh for comfort.
He shakes his fist, the one that will swell later - John had a thick skull- and steps back, backing up from the wolf that had helped him. He doesn't know who it is, or why they are here, and can only hope, and pray, that it's not about to turn its teeth on him.
Palms display out, down by his sides as he takes another small step back, watching it. Although he's trying to look harmless, his heart is thudding loud enough to be heard, quick, too, like his breathing. He's not scared, but anxious. Being scared came with being helpless, in nothing but white, agonizing pain while being drug along like some victim.
[Syrgja] The rat-faced man is slack now, blood pooling rapidly across his empty body, gleaming and dark beneath the fabric of the once-fine black trenchcoat, spreadeagled beneath him where he flung his arms out in a futile attempt to defend himself before he fell. There is the sharp stink of blood in the alley, and human waste; something else, darker, more oily and fetid - like fat scorched to smoking - beneath it, and the ozone waste of rage.
The beast shakes its great body once more, sending fat droplets of blood scattering across the alley. Then, with a precision and delicacy that something so large should not possess, abandons the kill, pulls itself back on its haunches and jumps away from the body, landing laterally, away from the blood puddle gathering around the dead man without advancing recklessly on Trent.
In the shadow of the dumpster behind with the other fallen human - the distorted one - had hidden itself, the beast changes, its bulk growing larger, the shadow of its body changing - and then (with sort of a pop as air inrushes to replace the vaccuum left behind by the disappeared mass) smaller, until there is a blonde woman on all fours - her weight balanced on her back legs, her hands forward for balance - pushing herself to stand, breathing heavily, adrenalin still spiking sharp through her body, singing and coursing, bright-eyed and feral with the immediacy of the hunt, her mouth crimson with blood.
She says nothing; but she's looking at him, breathing heavily, her mouth a smear of blood, her eyes gleaming, her shoulders heaving. She reaches up, pushes a closed fist across her mouth. It comes away bloodied, and she turns her head aside to spit more of the beast's blood from her mouth - a wild thing, stark in the darkness, her dark eyes bright, fixed unerringly on him.
[Trent Brumby] When it moves away from him, rather then advancing, some of the knot in stomach eases. He doesn't look away from it, not yet. It had moved far too quickly for him to react to before, not that he was paying particular attention to details but only movement. Now, it shifts mass until it becomes a blond woman, who - at first, isn't recognizable, until she stands up, staring at him and wiping her mouth with her hand.
His hands fall to his sides, limply. There's a chase of emotions across his face but none of them too clear, the most evident is the way his brows crease and then smooth out again. Gray eyes are troubled and concerned, both. He doesn't know what to say at first, and only nods, once. Grateful.
Standing there, with blood leaking across the ground, with the scent of filth stuck deep inside his nose, he's silent. It was a lot to take in, this walk from his work to his car, and his mind is slow to catch up. He's not as quick acting as some. He's a slow and thoughtful kind, and he's developing some sort of slow shock to settle in. His heart still beats heavy.
"You want me to help clean this?" He doesn't know how, but he's not going to abandon her. She just saved his life.
[Syrgja] She wipes her mouth again, this time with the flat back of her left hand - then gives up the illusion that she is doing anything more than smearing the blood around her face, and lifts the hem of her t-shirt (he knows this one by now - black, with PIXIES written across it in white letters) to scrub the blood from her face until she could pass, in the shadows, for something other than a cannibal serial killer. Her lips are still stained red, though - from the inside out, feathering out at the edges. Her breathing slows; her shoulders still. He asks whether she needs his help to clean up, and she looks away from him for the first time - down the middle of the filthy alley, the pair of savaged corpses, the blood a dull gleam between the shadows and orange light of the sky, the city beyond.
"You're okay?" she asks him the question when she is not looking at him. Her voice is low, raw and intense.
There is no acknowledgment of his question; no response to his offer. Not yet.
[Trent Brumby] His hands travel over his torso, feeling it up and over for the first time. He makes sure his backside is in tact too, before he's answering. He hadn't really taken notice of any injuries or changes, not knowing what happened in the space of the sidewalk and finding himself on his back. That had been an awful sensation and he's not going to forget it, ever.
"I'm alright," he assures her, sounding a little breathless about it, surprised maybe.
"Are you?"
[Syrgja] She looks back at him then; a quick look - clear and intense and direct enough that her shoulders move forward with it, that her body swings physically in his direction. "Yeah," she responds, to his question. " - yeah. I'm fine." Twice, even. She's breathless too, but she doesn't sound surprised. There's an undercurrent of savage joy that trips electric, livewire, coursing through her body. It's a different thing - and whatever had shuttered it inside her is open now, floodgates at high tide.
---
Then, back toward the corpses, back to Trent, breathless, surprised, watching her and now her mouth is curving wider, savage thing. She's breathing deeply, in through the nose, out through the mouth, her mind moving fast, faster, revived and intense from the encounter, her heart pumping, her body coursing the adrenalin that makes her bright and terrible and giddy and alive except that - in this moment, she has to stop herself, physically stop herself, and think. So, she is both half-smiling and thoughtful, her gaze distant, some point across the alley, indiscriminate as she counts off what she wants in short, quick succession.
"I need - " pause, regroup. Back to the corpses; part of her wants to laugh at this, absurd, filthy. At this conversation. At its improbability. " - garbage bags. Go get me a box of big black garbage bags. And some babywipes. Something to clean my face and hands. That's all I need."
After an April that felt like a June, though, the city's residents have grown soft. They're bundled up tonight, the Sunday drinkers, men who've come to fight over whether to watch the early baseball season or the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Women who've come in hopes of making up for Saturday night's disappointments, the would-haves and could-haves. Groups of friends meeting up to savor the last bitter dregs of the weekend, before Monday comes.
Sunday - late afternoon into evening - Trent threw the same guy out of MacReedy's three times. Twice before the sun had lanced the horizon - when the crowd was looser and less engaged, not yet coalesced around the televisions, drinking alone, wishing for a smoke, complaining sotto vocce about the health department as they cut out toward the patio to have one under cover, shivering in the late April chill. Once after, when he snuck in through the back door, when the sous chef was carting a load of trash out to the dumpster, and made his way back to the bar to ooze up beside the couple he had been bothering earlier, muttering about Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, watching them with the sort of single minded attention that puts men on edge and makes women call the police.
The third time he looked at Trent that way, directly in the eyes. His own were dark, but ringed, the pupils enormous, barely a thread of iris showing around them. Even his coat felt oily under Trent's hand as he took him by the arm, pulled him away from the bar, dragged him out to the door, shoved him out onto the dark, quiet street, on the dark, cold night.
"They took it," he said, the oily stranger, shaking. Maybe it was the drugs. Whatever you take that makes your pupils devour your eyes. Maybe it was grief. Maybe it was rage. Once, before Trent closed him without. "They took it all from me."
The stranger, we'll call him John, fixed Trent with a look directly in the eyes, his rat-face stiff, his skin white as the first shock of morning light against the sky.
"And I'm going to take it back."
- and was then gone. He didn't sneak back in. He didn't try. The atmosphere in the bar changed, eased. People laughed more brightly. People laughed. The games continued. The Cubs lost. The Blackhawks were winning when his evening relief showed up, late - to cover the last rowdy six hours of the night's work. 1-0. The cheer with the first goal was an electric thing through the crowd.
It was easy, then, to forget John.
Until, walking back to the carpark at the corner of Nash and 11th, he skirts one of the ubiquitous human-shaped lumps on the city's sidewalk. And this lump, looks up, round-eyed, white faced, shaking - reaches out to grab his ankle, the cuff of his pants leg. Says: "Spare some change?" - with a sort of sneer written into the fabric of the words, visceral, angry.
[Trent Brumby] It had been a trying night. By the third time that he had thrown out John, Trent was really starting to get impatient. Most guys, if they've drank a lot, might push their luck to twice, but this guy had gone in the back and through the kitchen, which had really grated on Trent in that way where the hand is about two seconds from dialing the police. Not that the police did anything around here anyway. They were always half an hour late, if they showed up at all. It was his job, his duty, to make sure that trouble here wasn't caused and everything ran smoothly. It wasn't easy though. This was the World of Darkness.
It had been rough enough that he wanted a cigarette, except he didn't have any on him since he had quit, was quitting or in the process of. A hand had patted his jacket pocket to check for them, realizing only then that there were none. He huffed out a heavy sigh and muttered to himself on his way to the car.
Rounding one of the many frequents on the streets, he finds his progress halted by the reaching of a hand. The trousers of his pants are black, relatively clean aside from a few spills of beer, the socks beneath black too, cotton, tucked into some lace up shoes. He looks down at the bum, brows cutting into a deep frown before a scowl crosses his mouth. He jerks his foot back with a hostile: "Get the fuck off, man." Clearly his patience is worn today.
[Syrgja] "Hey," the vagrant says, back. "Hey hey hey." He is excited; that's in his voice, too - charged beneath the anger. He's looking up now, lunging forward after the foot jerked out of his grasp, lurching upward, his mouth cutting wider. What he's wearing is - an oily old trench coat, and underneath it a suit. It would've been fine, once, but now the fine wool is matted with filth and stinks of cheap booze and body odor. Stinks of something else, too - a not-quite vegetal rot. Failure.
"You. I - I - I - I know you, man." Black hair, dark brown maybe, shining with grease. It hasn't been cut in a year, and hasn't been washed in weeks or months. Standing, the stranger is several inches shorter than Trent and far less broad. He's fearless, though - grinning to reveal a mouthful of teeth, some yellowed gristle still stuck between the incisors and canine. The spark of recognition grows brighter, intensifies. "I - I - I - I've been waiting for you, man." Shooting a glance back down the alley, over his shoulder, " - hey man! It's one of them! Can you believe the luck?"
He stalks closer, shadowing Trent's wake. And there's more - something dark, shadowed in the alley. Down a good twenty feet, behind the bulk of a dumpster - moving.
[Trent Brumby] "You don't know me," he tells the man, even if he recognizes him. It's generally a rule of thumb never to admit to knowing a crazy, grinning, filthy person that seems eager with anger and vengeance. In fact it's better just to encourage their craziness by denying all sorts of rational knowledge, while trying to get the hell out of dodge.
As John advances on him, though, Trent is scanning him for weapons - again. A shard of glass, a used syringe a broken piece of metal, anything potentially more deadly then fists and feet. He was in the process of halting, standing up to meet this filthy mongrel with some of his own violence, when there's movement down the alleyway.
A quick look, a dart of eyes, while trying to keep John in his sight - since he's the immediate threat, has him note something moving near a dumpster before he's looking directly back to John. "Listen, buddy, back off." It's the last warning.
[Ini: +5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Syrgja] John +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10
[Syrgja] The Thing in the Alley
+5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Syrgja] "No, man. No. I - I - I - remember now." The filthy stranger says, getting closer to Trent, his stench a near physical thing around him, his eyes huge, his body lean, attenuated, shaking beneath the coat and suit, which are now two sizes too large for him. He has no obvious weapons. No syringe. No glass - just a pair of empty hands spasming at the ends of his arms, just a shaking sort of need to him, just those half-devoured eyes. "I need you man." Quieter that.
"God help me, I need something." Quieter still, shot through with desperation.
[The Thing in the Alley: declares - hanging out back here in the shadows! He's two full actions away from the street.]
[Syrgja] Order!
[John 14
Trent: 10
Thing: 8]
[Trent Brumby] Trent doesn't deal with stench in his face very well. Thrice tonight he has grabbed this oily jacket and thrown it out of a bar not far from where they are, and this fourth time he doesn't grab, but shoves him back a few paces. "You need to get help," he tells him, ready to walk away, retreat. He really doesn't want a fight.
[declare: shove John and walk away.]
[Syrgja] [John: Mind blast Trent!]
[Syrgja] 4
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 10 (Failure at target 6) [WP]
[Trent Brumby] Dex + braw - shoving John
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Syrgja] John: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Syrgja] The filthy stranger leans forward, swaying - gives Trent a vicious little grin, those yellow teeth, circles closer and something snaps in him, a the dilated pupils go briefly pinpoint, the air sings with the promise of something black, bleak - but the kinsman is unaffected by it. Trent gives him a shove, then - the stranger stumbles backwards, but absorbs the blow and keeps his feet.
Breathing harder, he rounds on Trent again -
[Thing: HURRY UP DAMNIT. Begins walking slowly forward.]
[Trent Brumby] [Declare: Punching John.]
[Syrgja] [John: Mind Blast Trent!]
[Syrgja] Mind Blast!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] [Willpower]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Syrgja] It happens again, that change in the shape of the strange man's pupils - just a stutter step, they are huge, and then they are pinpoint, and then they are huge again, like a black hole. This time, the air around Trent seems to swim with fire; nothing has happened but everything has happened - the sensation is abrupt and overwhelming. Trent collapses to the ground, writhing in pain. Every nerve ending is on fire. This is what is must feel like to be thrust into the sun, to be electrocuted and remain alive, nerves singing with molten energy - the worst pain he has ever felt, everywhere and nowhere, raw and scorching, a livid, living thing to bright and terrible it is all he can do to breathe.
The world dissolves into the immediate moments, and they come in flashes, as if illuminated by a strobe bulb. The thing in the alley stops when Trent falls, shuffles back to its shelter behind the dumpster. The rat-faced man though - looser now, listless in a way that he was not before leans over the Trenth, his filthy breath a rotten wash, leans close to see the agony in the kinsman's eyes - and grins, rotten teeth, gristle stuck between them, flesh-and-bone-colored.
Then, still on his haunches, he hooks his arms underneath Trent's shoulders and starts dragging him toward the alley. It feels as if Trent's arms were being pull off at the socket. The slightest touch sends spasms of agony electric through his body.
[Trent Brumby] There is nothing that can prepare him for that. It's nothing he has ever felt in his life, experienced, or even imagined could happen. Later, maybe, if he survives it, he'll think on how the guy didn't even touch him. He expected a fist fight, and he got nothing but a look - a look that changed everything.
He's sure he screamed. He's sure there was an agonizing sound that ripped from his throat, like nothing he's ever made before, something primal in the way pain can only make it. But maybe nothing came past his lips, maybe nothing at all.
It's just all consuming pain that leeches him of any movement and thought.
[Syrgja] The night is quiet around them. Just the harshness of Trent's breathing, the shuffle-step of the stranger as he struggles to drag his prey back toward his companion. The stranger grunts, groans from the strain. He wanted something smaller - he wanted something slighter. Something softer. One of those others inside the bar. One of those others, and he is cursing under his breath as drags Trent, muttering something about them and hunger, about loss, about - words Trent cannot hear through the spasms of agony in which he finds himself.
Instead, what Trent knows is:
he wakes up again. He comes back to consciousness, the pain receding as abruptly as it enveloped him. He comes back to consciousness, and he is lying on his back inside the mouth of the alley, halfway toward the dumpster where the shadow-thing hid, looking up at the slice of the sky between the buildings, swimming orange with the reflected light of the city. He comes back to consciousness, the sound of fighting behind him and when he turns - when he looks - he sees:
A lumpen once-human Thing, misshapen, with grayed skin like the flesh of a mummified elephant and a strange second lump, shrunken, like a huge misplaced goiter on the shoulder beside its head - mouthful of teeth, claws jutting sharp from its otherwise human hands clear abruptly in the light coalescing in the center of the alley - squaring off against a monstrous wolf, gray furred, slaver stringing from its maw, snarling some challenge back at the fallen Thing.
His own tormenter has left off the work of dragging him into the alley, and turned his back to Trent. Now, John Doe is casting about for a weapon - any weapon - to employ in the battle in front of him.
[Syrgja] [Kora: +8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
to Syrgja
[Syrgja] Thing +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
to Syrgja
[Syrgja] John +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
to Syrgja
[Trent Brumby] Its like learning to breathe again, that first intake of air that he's conscious on. Slow realization dawns on him, of where he is, of what those sounds are nearby and what had happened. Rolling from his back, he's moving to push up from his stomach towards his feet, testing the way his muscles work with the effort.
He sees, further down the alley, the fight of a wolf and a thing that his eyes can't quite make sense of. But John, he can see him, and the search for something. Shaking his hand, as though waking it up, he soon clenches the fist, unclenches and approaches.
[Declare: Beating John from behind. Aint got no honour.]
[Trent Brumby] [Ambush: Dex (no stealth) ]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[Trent Brumby] [Punch: Dex + Braw - head-shot.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]
[Trent Brumby] [Damage: Punch]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 4)
[Syrgja] Soak! - head shot.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Sorrow: 13
Thing: 10
Trent: 10 **precedes John b/c higher dex/wits score.
John: 10
[John - 1a. turn around! 1b. punch!]
[Trent Brumby] [Declare: Punch John, again.]
[Syrgja] [Thing: 1a. claw! 1b. claw!]
[Sorrow: 1 WP Resist Pain. 1a. Bite; 1b. Bite; Rage 1: Bite; Rage 2: Bite ]
[Syrgja] Ancestors!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]
to Syrgja
[Syrgja] Sorrow 1a. Bite -2
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 8, 10 (Failure at target 5)
[Syrgja] 1b. Bite -3
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]
[Syrgja] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Thing soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 3, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Syrgja] Thing 1a. claw! -2 for split, -1 for wounds
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Syrgja] Thing 1b. claw! -3 split, -1 wounds
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]
[Syrgja] Thing: damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Sorrow: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] Punching John; Dex + Bra
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4)
[Trent Brumby] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Syrgja] Sorrow rage: 1.
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)
[Syrgja] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Syrgja] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 8)
[Syrgja] Rage 2: +1 dif for changing actions, -2 for stunned, -2 for back attack. Min dif three.
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 3)
[Syrgja] Damage:
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] Punching John, again. Dex + Brawl
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 4)
[Trent Brumby] Damage
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Syrgja] The fight is blisteringly fast. Trent wakens, pushes himself up from the cold asphalt, beneath the cold spring sky - and launches himself at the rat-faced stranger in the filthy, too-large suit from behind. He has the advantage of surprise, pummels the man about the head - and hits him again before he can turn, leaving him reeling, struggling to remain standing.
Further down, in front of the dumpster - the inhuman thing - with its slack and sagging second head, its vicious claws protruding from the ends of its gray human hands charges at the direwolf, just scoring its hide at the shoulder with one of the claws. The beast launches itself at the thing, misses once, then seizes the thing in its jaws, tearing. Again she surges forward, faster than the eye can follow - rends the Thing asunder, leaving it a sagging sack of corrupt flesh, the viscera spilling from the stomach forward, steaming in the cold night. The beast shakes, a spray of blood from its maw - and charges forward again - somehow failing to seize and tear apart the rat-faced man. Instead, Trent punches him again. The blow feels off, doesn't have that solid crack of connection - but it is enough to send the rat-faced man sprawling unconscious on the pavement, face slack, tongue fat, lolling in his open mouth.
The massive wolf, flanks heaving, pads over the unconscious body of the rat-faced man and calmly - rips out his throat.
[Trent Brumby] Too quick to really think, just react, Trent is left looking at the large wolf that tears out a throat, leaving blood to leak on the asphalt of the alleyway. His mind is still catching up to him, the way everything had happened, the details still just flickers of images in his mind and that memory of pain far too fresh for comfort.
He shakes his fist, the one that will swell later - John had a thick skull- and steps back, backing up from the wolf that had helped him. He doesn't know who it is, or why they are here, and can only hope, and pray, that it's not about to turn its teeth on him.
Palms display out, down by his sides as he takes another small step back, watching it. Although he's trying to look harmless, his heart is thudding loud enough to be heard, quick, too, like his breathing. He's not scared, but anxious. Being scared came with being helpless, in nothing but white, agonizing pain while being drug along like some victim.
[Syrgja] The rat-faced man is slack now, blood pooling rapidly across his empty body, gleaming and dark beneath the fabric of the once-fine black trenchcoat, spreadeagled beneath him where he flung his arms out in a futile attempt to defend himself before he fell. There is the sharp stink of blood in the alley, and human waste; something else, darker, more oily and fetid - like fat scorched to smoking - beneath it, and the ozone waste of rage.
The beast shakes its great body once more, sending fat droplets of blood scattering across the alley. Then, with a precision and delicacy that something so large should not possess, abandons the kill, pulls itself back on its haunches and jumps away from the body, landing laterally, away from the blood puddle gathering around the dead man without advancing recklessly on Trent.
In the shadow of the dumpster behind with the other fallen human - the distorted one - had hidden itself, the beast changes, its bulk growing larger, the shadow of its body changing - and then (with sort of a pop as air inrushes to replace the vaccuum left behind by the disappeared mass) smaller, until there is a blonde woman on all fours - her weight balanced on her back legs, her hands forward for balance - pushing herself to stand, breathing heavily, adrenalin still spiking sharp through her body, singing and coursing, bright-eyed and feral with the immediacy of the hunt, her mouth crimson with blood.
She says nothing; but she's looking at him, breathing heavily, her mouth a smear of blood, her eyes gleaming, her shoulders heaving. She reaches up, pushes a closed fist across her mouth. It comes away bloodied, and she turns her head aside to spit more of the beast's blood from her mouth - a wild thing, stark in the darkness, her dark eyes bright, fixed unerringly on him.
[Trent Brumby] When it moves away from him, rather then advancing, some of the knot in stomach eases. He doesn't look away from it, not yet. It had moved far too quickly for him to react to before, not that he was paying particular attention to details but only movement. Now, it shifts mass until it becomes a blond woman, who - at first, isn't recognizable, until she stands up, staring at him and wiping her mouth with her hand.
His hands fall to his sides, limply. There's a chase of emotions across his face but none of them too clear, the most evident is the way his brows crease and then smooth out again. Gray eyes are troubled and concerned, both. He doesn't know what to say at first, and only nods, once. Grateful.
Standing there, with blood leaking across the ground, with the scent of filth stuck deep inside his nose, he's silent. It was a lot to take in, this walk from his work to his car, and his mind is slow to catch up. He's not as quick acting as some. He's a slow and thoughtful kind, and he's developing some sort of slow shock to settle in. His heart still beats heavy.
"You want me to help clean this?" He doesn't know how, but he's not going to abandon her. She just saved his life.
[Syrgja] She wipes her mouth again, this time with the flat back of her left hand - then gives up the illusion that she is doing anything more than smearing the blood around her face, and lifts the hem of her t-shirt (he knows this one by now - black, with PIXIES written across it in white letters) to scrub the blood from her face until she could pass, in the shadows, for something other than a cannibal serial killer. Her lips are still stained red, though - from the inside out, feathering out at the edges. Her breathing slows; her shoulders still. He asks whether she needs his help to clean up, and she looks away from him for the first time - down the middle of the filthy alley, the pair of savaged corpses, the blood a dull gleam between the shadows and orange light of the sky, the city beyond.
"You're okay?" she asks him the question when she is not looking at him. Her voice is low, raw and intense.
There is no acknowledgment of his question; no response to his offer. Not yet.
[Trent Brumby] His hands travel over his torso, feeling it up and over for the first time. He makes sure his backside is in tact too, before he's answering. He hadn't really taken notice of any injuries or changes, not knowing what happened in the space of the sidewalk and finding himself on his back. That had been an awful sensation and he's not going to forget it, ever.
"I'm alright," he assures her, sounding a little breathless about it, surprised maybe.
"Are you?"
[Syrgja] She looks back at him then; a quick look - clear and intense and direct enough that her shoulders move forward with it, that her body swings physically in his direction. "Yeah," she responds, to his question. " - yeah. I'm fine." Twice, even. She's breathless too, but she doesn't sound surprised. There's an undercurrent of savage joy that trips electric, livewire, coursing through her body. It's a different thing - and whatever had shuttered it inside her is open now, floodgates at high tide.
---
Then, back toward the corpses, back to Trent, breathless, surprised, watching her and now her mouth is curving wider, savage thing. She's breathing deeply, in through the nose, out through the mouth, her mind moving fast, faster, revived and intense from the encounter, her heart pumping, her body coursing the adrenalin that makes her bright and terrible and giddy and alive except that - in this moment, she has to stop herself, physically stop herself, and think. So, she is both half-smiling and thoughtful, her gaze distant, some point across the alley, indiscriminate as she counts off what she wants in short, quick succession.
"I need - " pause, regroup. Back to the corpses; part of her wants to laugh at this, absurd, filthy. At this conversation. At its improbability. " - garbage bags. Go get me a box of big black garbage bags. And some babywipes. Something to clean my face and hands. That's all I need."
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