[Kora] The equinox has passed and the moon is full. The harvest moon. If not for the clouds, it would be low and fat in the sky now, just after sunset. There are clouds, though, a deep drifting bank of them, the promise of rain in the air and a sharp bite means football weather. That means - frost soon.
The church is still, and dark. Leaves are starting to change on the trees that have grown up around the ruin, shielding the view of the big stone walls from the street.
Kora sits on the steps, near the top, on the long, wide portico. She has a reasonable view of the street, the gates of the old chain link fencing put up by someone - maybe the diocese - to keep vagrants out years ago are pulled open, wide. They've been like that for years, rust stains the sidewalk. The fence is covered by twisting vines, and these are starting to turn colors, too. The leaves are yellow, the fruits falling off.
The earth turns away from the sun.
Her usual clothing is supplemented by a long-sleeved thermal undershirt and zippered hoodie in shades of blue, the colors are muted but saturated, receding in the darkness.
Dinner time. She searches through a white paper bag filled with take-out chinese, pushing past Roman's choices looking for her container of hot and sour soup.
[Roman Turner] He was waiting his turn at the bag while he sat on the steps with her. As usual he was in a hat, but it was cooler and night, the summer weight hat was replaced with a black Stetson. Brass buttons glinted faintly down the front of the open jean jacket he wore as he sat hunched forward, forearms resting across his thighs.
"Colder here than home. Confuses my internal clock, ya know?"
Not that the cooler weather bothered him, instead it just screwed with his memory sense.
[Imogen] She sees Imogen through the chain link fence, recognizes her because of her brilliant hair, even muted in fading light of dusk, because of her stature, because of the way she moves. Her hands are pocketed in her corduroy jacket, her back is straight.
She turns her head when she feels the Skald's gaze on her. The doctor's gaze has always been direct, and it is no different with the moon full, with the Garou's rage high.
She steps through the open gates, her flat shoes near silent on the concrete, and moves silently until she's within speaking distance. When she inhales, she can smell the grease of the Chinese food. It reminds her of Kemp.
"Cigney's dead," she says without preamble. "I ha' in the morgue."
[Imogen] (holy crap, I didn't see Roman log in at all! *LOL*)
[Imogen] (lemme repost real quick.)
[Imogen] They can see Imogen through the chain link fence, recognizes her because of her brilliant hair, even muted in fading light of dusk, because of her stature, because of the way she moves. Her hands are pocketed in her corduroy jacket, her back is straight.
When she senses one, or the other or both looking at her, she turns her head. Her gaze is direct even at this distance, even with the moon full, their rage high.
She steps through the open gates, her flat shoes near silent on the concrete, and moves silently until she's within speaking distance. When she inhales, she can smell the grease of the Chinese food. It reminds her of Kemp.
"Cigney's dead," she says without preamble. "I ha' her body in the morgue."
[Kora] "Never developed that internal clock, not 'til after, myself, yeah?" After changing, she means. Now, that feels innate, the seasons move under her skin like water. She knows the earth the way few humans can, or will. " - moved around too much. Arizona one year, Maine the next. That screws with your sense of the seasons."
The cup of soup is open, by then. Kora's taken her first sip, tentative, and her second, deeper when she knows the liquid will not burn her tongue. Then she catches sight of Imogen's hair like a flare against the darkness, and turns, setting her cup of soup off to the side, cinching the lid back down, brushing off her hands on the worn thighs of her jeans.
There's an instinct to stand, when Imogen is close enough. That's old, embedded - some fundamental courtesy she carries inside her. - but she stays the instinct. Imogen has stopped at foot of the steps, maybe a few steps up. Standing would just make her that much taller.
Instead, she remains seated, and stills at the news, gritting her teeth, a spasm of tendon in her jaw as her rage sparks and flares, sickening, turning her stomach. Kora swallows against her gorge and breathes out, knuckles white, her hands fisted, nails digging into her thighs.
"Fuck." she says, low and sharp, with feeling, breathing out hard. Abrupt. She lifts her chin then, looks away, down the street, scene through the scrim of overgrown trees and vines. " - how?" Quieter, her voice, but no less hard.
[Roman Turner] He was just digging in the bag for his dinner when Imogen appeared with the dead news. Unlike Kora, he was on his feet in an instant, hat removed with the brim cupped in his hand, the opening pressed against his chest.
"What happened?"
[Izzy Montoya] There are any number of reasons that would have Izzy in this neighborhood, and most of them involve doors wrapped in yellow tape, victims carted off in body bags, little splotches of blood identified with white numbered markers, strong fingers encased in blue gloves to protect fingerprints found, and other such things. Tonight is no different, and the walk back to her car takes her past a certain abandoned church.
Fate is a funny thing, after all.
Her walk is distinctive - she's been accused of walking like a man, often enough, but what it is is a stride of purpose, of intent. She's aware of her surroundings, for all her attention is on the phone in her hand and the message on it.
[Imogen] Imogen's gaze fixes on the Garou on their reaction, a wariness that is far from fear as rage sparks and reactions come, sharply restrained. Roman gets the most attention - getting to his feet as he does.
But neither lose control - she does not relax, but after a moment, she answers, replying to their dual questions.
"She was found dead in a park, a knife in hand. There were multiple sharp force injuries to the front, back and side. Claw marks. S'not Garou, s'too big t'be animal." She shakes her head slightly. "Unfortunately th'wyrm doesn't keep me up t'date on their abominations."
A pause.
"The knife was soaked wi' blood and so was her sleeve and wrist. She died fighting."
She says it without sympathy - but simply as a fact that might as well be said.
[Roman Turner] He just didn't get why Kinfolk insisted on walking through the parks and bad parts of town at night, especially knowing what was out there. At the moment that irony was pushed in to silence as the person came in to sight. Izzy was not someone that sparked memory for him so when he spotted her he stepped down from the porch and closer to Imogen. Speaking softly as he replaced the hat on his head and neared Imogen.
"That's a right shame. I'm sorry for the loss."
[Kora] The world constricts, in moments like these, to a set series of reference points. Aware of her packmate, standing, close enough that her shoulder brushes his leg, aware of his rage, her own, and the moon in the sky, hidden behind the clouds, huge and round. She is aware of the way her breath frosts out of her mouth, a quiet cloud.
Cigney died fighting, Imogen says. Kora's generous mouth flattens, her nostrils flare. In the days after the moot, Kora met one of the new-come Fenrir in the Sept, among the graves, told him the story of Lexi Jonsen's death. Read out to him the names of the Fenrir dead as she circled the monuments. She died, he said, like a Fenrir should.
A good death, he judged it.
She makes no such judgments.
"Can you show us where it happened?" She remains seated, her lean frame taut. Uncurling her fists, spreading her hands out over her thighs, staring off sharply past Imogen's shoulder, before returning her attention to the kinswoman. Briefly, her eyes touch on Izzy, nearly unseeing except for the sharp curl of breeding that sparks an animal response in her, under her skin.
Then she swallows, a winging glance back to the kinswoman, direct. "I want the body, too." That's rather more quiet. "I don't want - " what, her flat mouth whitens as she bites something back. She doesn't want Imogen's instruments underneath the woman's skin. She doesn't want her splayed open on a stainless steel table, under unforgiving lights. The mere thought strikes a visceral reaction in her. She voices none of it.
[Izzy Montoya] There's something about being watched by the Garou that is distinctly different than being watched by mere mortals. It's very much like feeling stalked, like someone - no, something is watching, deciding if someone is dinner, and deciding that yes, yum, tasty flesh. The creepy crawly feeling at the back of the neck, fine hairs lifting in effort to run away themselves, spine stiffening, muscles tensing, the sudden desire to run, run far, run now...
Izzy does not give in to any such feeling. She is Fenrir. She is a decorated Detective. She is, quite possibly, insane. Either way, when the eyes of the Garou find her, she takes a breath, and looks up from her phone to find the source of her sudden discomfort, and in so doing, discovers the unmistakeble glint of fire-red hair, and the presence of the Jarl. Her Jarl, one would say. She.. simply wouldn't say at all.
She pauses, however, outside of the gate, and nods in their direction. A hello, of sorts.
[Imogen] Imogen's eyebrow arches slightly toward Roman. "Say it to yer packmate," she says, lifting her chin slightly toward Kora. "S'a loss t'her tribe."
She turns her head toward Kora as she speaks. "I can only release th'body t' her relatives," she says. "S'in the system, now, and there's only so much I can do in tha' respect." There is a steadiness to what she says; she does not flinch from this defiance.
She pauses at the question. "I can show yeh the park," she says, "and the general area, but th'body was picked up by one o' the medical examiners; they didn't see fit t'need t'ha' a forensic pathologist come out."
Both Garou's gazes flick toward Izzy as she passes them by - in response, Imogen turns to glance over her shoulder.
She speaks, then, raising her voice to be heard. "Detective Montoya," she calls out. "C'mere a moment, will yeh?"
[Roman Turner] Kora knew what he felt in a sense as he felt the anger and loss seeping across from her across the link. For his part, his soul answered with sorrow, that sick little feeling. At his age, he was still immortal, he'd not had many close to him die yet. So accepting someone wasn't around anymore, was a vague notion. Instead he sort of replaced dead with vacation in his brain.
He remained where he was, watching Izzy, though Imogen's sort of greeting relaxed him enough to reach up to the crown of his hat where he gripped it enough to lift the hat an inch of his head with a nod to Izzy.
"Ma'am."
[Kora] "Norway," Kora returns. Her voice is low, she has a stillness about her that is defined by tense muscles, by a certain promise of motion-to-come. Her voice is low and rought, nostrils flaring with something, some underlying anger that is different than the unseeing spark of rage. " - they're in fucking Norway. Ran off and left her here to sink or swim alone."
The Chinese food is cooling on the steps, mostly forgotten now. The hot and sour soup will not be consumed tonight. Maybe she'll pour it out someplace away from their den, to feed whatever animal-things make their living in the hard-scrabble industrial territory they claim. Maybe she'll drink it cold in the morning.
Breakfast of champions.
"There's got to be some kind of release they can sign, right? Let me take care of it as her second cousin twice removed, by marriage."
This has the ghost of a smile drifting across her mouth, a still one, sick with feeling. She lifts her chin, her head moving in an animal cant as her eyes travel over Roman's profile, the emotions leaking across the link clear to her.
Abruptly she stands, "Detective," greeting Izzy when she comes closer, the word flat as a board, business-like. Dusting off her hands on the thighs of her jeans, she bends over, picks up the Chinese food, rolling the opening of the bag closed before she sets that too aside on the porch, the portico.
[Izzy Montoya] Imogen asks her to come over, and after the briefest of hesitations, during which Roman nods and calls her old ma'am, she nods. "Of course, Doctor Slaughter."
She slips past the gate, and in a few long strides joins them at the steps, remaining apart just a tough, though close enough to speak without need to raise their voice. She stops short when Kora stands abruptly, and then after a moment, she nods again, this time to the Jarl first "Kora." and another to Roman.
She stops short of calling him sir in retaliation. barely.
[Imogen] Imogen glances back over her shoulder at Kora as she speaks. Once must admit, the kinwoman appears entirely cold in this. Her expression hard but unreadable beyond that. Each word quiet and controlled.
Kora is barely leashed Rage, Roman is sorry for the loss and Imogen - well.
She is doing her duty, as she sees it, to the letter.
"I'll see what I can do," she says, "but we should p'raps find a kinfolk t'receive th'remains. Th'less visibility yeh ha', the better."
Back to Izzy.
"Ha' yeh heard about the park case?" she says. "It 'appened a few days ago. S'kinfolk, and it's a veil breech," however slight.
"I've signed out th'death certificate wi' a cause o' death as 'multiple injuries due to animal attack', but I imagine there will still be an investigation." Her head tilts slightly, indicating the detective, "Anythin' yeh can do to help support my findings or at least nudge the investigatin' detective in tha' direction would be appreciated."
[Roman Turner] (oh hey, don't go in order. I mean, don't wait for me )
to Imogen, Izzy Montoya, Kora
[Roman Turner] (oh hey, don't go in order. I mean, don't wait for me )
to Imogen, Izzy Montoya, Kora
[Paul Kellogg] The bumble-bee yellow humvee slows as it drives up the street. Pulling to a stop and park two car lengths up from the quartet. Paul steps out. Wearing faded jeans, those simple toe shoes and a solid blue tee that was form fitting.
A bright smile on his face as he steps upon the curb, heading their way. Casting a curt wave. "Heya folks...."
[Kora] "There anything you need?" this is an aside to Roman, as Imogen turns to discuss the particulars of covering up the veil-breech. Of steering the investigation, of moving things around so that the mortal authorities will be and remain satisfied that one Cigney North, nineteen years old, surfer girl from California with eyes that will be memorialized as "gray" in her official records rather than silvery, died from an animal attack. A pit-bull on the loose, some fighting dog. Doberman or German Shepherd - something ordinary, quotidian.
Something that preserves the Veil.
Kora's question to her packmate is aloud, though. Underneath, there's a faint nudge along the link, feeling Resistance's presence out there, at the Caern, maybe, then deciding in the end that there's no point in summoning her too, in waiting any longer.
This is how you go to war: in a zipped up hoodie in gradations of blue, hair pulled back, in a black t-shirt that doesn't show blood, a white thermal undershirt for warmth, that does. Standing, she reaches back, shakes her hair loose from its knot, finger combs the curling locks free, and then begins to plait it, a French braid, her fingers running expertly through the strands. " - I'm ready when you are."
Kora waits until Izzy and Imgen have finished their exchange. Then, " - if you don't mind, Detective, come with us, yeah? Could use your eyes."
[Izzy Montoya] A brow arches slightly as Imogen gives her a quick rundown, and there's a flicker of something in her gaze, unreadable and brief. By the end, though, she nods, slightly. "I've heard of it - it's not my case, but I can see what I can do." In fact the wheels are already turning. She's owed a couple of favors, it should be easily enough to nudge them in supporting the doctor's decision.
Fortunately, she's very good at her job - both of them.
Kora invites her along to see where it happened, and she nods, slightly. "Of course." Her eyes, and possibly other talents, depending on the area in question. Not that she's ever let Kora know exactly what she could do...
[Roman Turner] He was in the midst of trying to come to terms with a pretty girl just dying like that. She had set him up and shot him down cold, but he'd not wished death on her. Now he sort of felt guilty that somehow he'd made her end up dead. Kora asked and he shook his head as he wrestled with the nearly overwhelming need to have his cousin close.
"No ma'am, Miss Kora."
About that time Paul turned and waved, greeting them and he returned the wave and muttered to Kora.
"Paul's coming this way."
Like she couldn't see that herself.
[Imogen] Imogen nods slightly. "I appreciate it." She says, simply. "I'll do th'same from my end." The conversation is a brief, transitory window into something normally kept to the background. It's there a moment, then it's gone. The women have said all they need to each other. They'll work separately now, both for the same goal.
She turns her head slightly to Kora, nodding slightly, then glancing toward Paul as he approaches.
"H'lo," she says, her accent truncating the vowel of her greeting - what might have once been 'Hullo' to almost nothingness.
A glance toward his car, "Bit conspicuous for this area o' town, aren't yeh?"
Even as she speaks, she is reaching into the pocket of her corduroy jacket, retrieving a set of car keys.
[Kora] Then Paul pulls up, in his bright yellow hummer, parks it on a mostly desolate industrial street not far from the entrance to an old derelict church, built in the neo-gothic style. The building has been abandoned for twenty five years, and is surrounded by a riot of trashy trees, locusts mostly, a tangle, survival of the fittest and fastest-growing, the deepest roots in the worst soil.
He's smiling. They aren't. Imogen and Izzy are on the concrete sidewalk leading to the wide steps that lead to the portico, proper. Roman stands close by. Kora is near the top of the steps, dressed in a worn jeans and a hoodie over a thermal and t-shirt that add bulk to her frame, her arms up behind her head, rapidly plaiting her hair.
" - yuf," Kora greets Paul as he becomes visible, offers his salutations. There's no answering smile. Kora is working her way down the steps, her hands still employed twisting her braid together. When she's close enough to Roman, she brushes past him, close physical contact, reassurance.
[Roman Turner] He brushed back against Kora and followed her till he got close enough to Paul to say in a soft voice.
"Cigney's dead."
Letting the other Coggie know why everyone was so solemn.
[Izzy Montoya] She turns as Paul says hello, but she doesn't reply. Instead, her comment is for Kora, Imogen.
"My car is one block down." An unspoken invitation for those who might need a ride, as well as a simple statement that she intends to drive herself, to make it easier to hit the station afterwards. And with that, she's following Kora back to the street.
[Paul Kellogg] A quick nod to Imogen, but his smile never wavered. "Perhaps...but I liake it" Wiggling his brows at her. "Nice to see ya gain Doc" But his gaze takes on the others. Before Roman's words even registered, his smile had wavered. Roman didn't appear his happy self, and hell neither did Kora...
Tilting his head, his smile faded to nill in an instant. []"Im sorry..what? Cigney? The blonde kin? I just saw her a few days ago...how?"[/b]
[Roman Turner] "Seems she ran in to trouble in a park. Her body was found with a knife in hand. Something tore her up, but looks like she tried to fight it off."
Went down fighting didn't sound right, that was too Wild West and didn't fit with a pretty girl dying. She'd put her fingers against his skin once, touched him. She'd hugged him, surprising and confusing the hell out of him. Then she'd set him up and shot him down another time. Still it just didn't make sense, she was too young to die, wasn't she?"
[Paul Kellogg] "Well Gawd Damn, sheit...Im sorry man..what can I do to help?" Shocked, he had alittle trouble digesting the news. Never thought he'd not see her again..or hell even get a chance to use any of her skills in aiding with his hairbrained ideas. "...ya'll got any ideas who or what did it?"
[Imogen] A brief glance at Izzy, a brief flicker of smirk, "Mine as well." She says, though there is no humour behind it. Paul said it was nice to see her again. Imogen glances his way but does not respond.
At his question, she had started to draw breath to answer - but Roman says it first.
"Not a friend of yer kind, that's fer sure," she does, however, answer the last question, mildly.
[Imogen] (okay, folks, just a heads up, I need to start doing some work, which may result in long silences from me. Kind of inconvenient since Imogen's rather embroiled in the scene, but there it is! if you don't have to wait for me, please don't!)
[Roman Turner] "Miss Doctor Slaughter is gonna take us where it happened in the faint hopes we might find some clue as to what did it. Ya want to come along? I'm sure the more eyes, ears and noses the better."
He however did look towards his Alpha to make sure he wasn't stepping on Fenrir territory with this.
[Kora] Kora's generous mouth is still; in the amber lights, the discs of her dark eyes sheen like liquid metal as she reaches the base of the stone steps and glances up, looking from Roman to Paul, to Izzy, to Imogen.
"We're going to see what we can find, and kill it if we find it." Whatever killed the kinswoman. Kora says that with an air of finality
[Kora] (gah! ignore!)
[Paul Kellogg] "One of the reasons I came here was to chat with Kora about this kin..but that chat wont matter now. It would be remiss of me not to aid ya Roman, or your pack...I'd like to know who's responsible and do em in. Weather we liake our kin or not...we don't let em get slain. Besides, I owe Kora for her generousity with August during my absence...so Im in if ya'll have me"
[Kora] Kora's generous mouth is still; in the amber lights, the discs of her dark eyes sheen like liquid metal as she reaches the base of the stone steps and glances up, looking from Roman to Paul, to Izzy, to Imogen.
"We're going to see what we can find, and kill it if we find it." Whatever killed the kinswoman. Kora says that with an air of finality. Roman invites Paul along, and Kora shoots him a look, her pale head tilted. By now, her braid is finished. She secures it with an elastic band, a proper hair band rather than a cheap rubber band from someone's morning newspaper. "You're welcome, but there's no acting out in this. You come with us right now, That's Great, you follow when you need to follow. If you can abide by that, you're welcome."
Then, she shoots a glance at his Hummer. "Leave your ride, here. Best not to be associated with a crime scene. Detective, Doc, Roman, Paul and I would appreciate a ride."
[Roman Turner] He looked at his Tribe's man to see how his Alpha's words set with him. Then touching the brim of his hat, he followed Kora, commenting over his shoulder to Paul.
"Hope ya ain't fond of them rims."
[Izzy Montoya] She glances around. "Alright then."
She turns then, to finish the walk she had started and aborted with the invitation of the Doc. A tip of her head invites those that are riding with her to join her, but she does not slow down. They're Garou, they can keep up.
As promised, down the block is a non-descript yet obviously unmarked police issue vehicle. Boxy, brown, four door, and likely with an engine supped up more than one would think. There's rusts in spots, the doors when they get to it creak when they're pulled opened. But it runs, and it runs better than expected. Izzy says nothing, simply presses the button on the keyring she pulls from her pocket, unlocking the doors.
[Paul Kellogg] "I've left her in worst places friend" With a soft chuckle to Roman. He only nodded to Kora. He was in, he knew the drill. He might be without a pack at the moment, but he's always been a team player. Following her guidance. He keyed his pad for the alarm and locks and pocketed it.
[Roman Turner] He was willing to pile in the back seat of the car with Paul. Hat pulled off before climbing in. His brain was still chasing it's own tail in circles as he tried to make sense of the death. It still didn't seem real because he hadn't seen her broken, dead. And he was getting that bleed from Kora that made his chest tight.
[Paul Kellogg] Climbing into the back with Roman. A slow shake of his head as he let a breath out. "Fuckin kin killers..."
[Kora] The park is small. One of those half-block green spaces built by some well-meaning philanthropist. There's a name etched into a concrete slab near the the entrance to the place, though now it is covered over in graffity and bird-shirt, because after the big gift of ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars, after the ribbon cutting and the dedication that brought out all the city's dignitaries to bask in the reflected glow of Something Positive -
- the place hasn't been visited except by the grass-mowing crew. The annuals were left to die in the planting beds, the playground equipment gradually stolen or coopted by the homeless or neighboring gangs. The grass is mowed by big machines in a matter of minutes. No one bothers to pick up the crack vials or the discarded butts of blunts. The sandbox stinks of urine from the neighborhood's stray cats, the hinged lid meant to prevent that was broken the first week the place was open. There are slats missing from the park benches, and human feces in the bushes.
And a crime scene, where the alley bisects the park, cutting it right in half.
Death by dog attack doesn't merit surveillance on the crime scene. No one bothered to call in the forensic team. Now there's just yellow tape to mark the place, wrapped around the post of a non-functioning path light, and a pair of convenient trees. The path is asphalt, solid. In the dark, it is hard to see the blood. The trees here are young, slender. Planted last summer, the summer before, before the grand opening. They're growing, because their roots are in the ground.
They're growing.
They parked down the block, away. Drifted down here in ones and twos rather than as a big knot of bodies, and now Kora stands at the edge of the tape, frowning closely, searching the dark, quiet scene.
"No other bodies found here?" This to Imogen, to Izzy.
Her hands are in her pockets. There's no ease to her, tonight.
[Roman Turner] His head turned towards Paul in the dark backseat and he spoke in a low voice to him.
"So, ya got hitched, right? Got a youngun?"
He made small talk till they got out of the car, then he replaced his hat and moseyed in a round about way towards the crime scene, taking a route across the street from it so he got a wide angle on the area while Kora got a more close up view.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul stayed out of the way, though that didn't stop him from gazing around the park. Trying to get a feel for the scene himself. Though the scents he picked up were nothing he'd care to bask in.
He'd responded to Roman's questions in the car during their ride. Yes, he claimed August as his mate...Yes the youngin he claims too. That they live in a large warehouse near the Caern that once housed his pack...but since their departure it's empty save for he and his kin
[Izzy Montoya] When they arrive, she pauses before getting out of the car to add a spare firearm to holster at her ankle. She also checks the rounds in the one at the small of ehr back, before re-holstering it as well. Only then does she step outside, and lock the door behind them as they exit. They're likely glad to get out of the car - for a cop, she has a casual disregard for things like.. red lights and speed limits. Poor unsuspecting Garou....
She's quiet when they arrive. She's in work mode now, and her jaw is determinedly set. There is very little that she misses on an average day, and now is no different. However, her methods may seem.. unconventional to those that watch as she steps under the flickering tape, and sinks to a crouch. A steadying breath and then she...
....listens.
[Echo, echo, do I hear an echo? Per+emp, diff 7, reroll 10s, COME ON KAHSEENO, GIMME WHAT I NEED!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1
[Izzy Montoya] It comes in a wave - so much, so fast, that she actually flinches, expressions flashing across her face in quick succession. There are so few that know what she can do, that understand that she's more than just a badass detective with the ability to understand a scene better than any other. She has a gift, and for the first time in years, she's using it in front of another Garou. Willingly.
alms, alms for the poor
bless you child
that's jasper a friend...
you hurt Jasper!
Is that the best you've got?
I'm ready...
You're best shot... make it count this time...
Her breath has quickened, and her muscles tense, body falling into fight or flight mode despite the fact she remains crouched where she is. The clench of her fists give it away, the grind of her jaw, the lines that mar her forehead, as she relives what happened here through sounds and voices that happened days ago.
And when it's over
the body falls, the last breath escapes, the thud echoed with another flinch from the usually steady detective, the knife clatters to the ground, and...
She opens her eyes, and snaps her head to the left, to the alleyway. She starts to speak, but her voice won't work for a moment. She swallows, and drags a hand over her face, unsurprised (yet irritated) to find her fingers trembling.
"There. About a block into the alleyway. There were three of them - Cigney took out two. The third muttered the address to someone called he called Master. He was scared shitless."
[Kora] There are limits to hunting in the city. The park is dark and quiet, but there are building all around. The trees are something of a screen for the path form the street. Still, there's no practical way for the Garou to shift her, to give in to their feral senses without endangering the veil. Kora rides shotgun, looks back briefly, her face a ghost in the darkness, as Roman makes small talk asking about August. She doesn't ask any questions herself, about August or her child, just absorbs Paul's responses with this quiet focus, immediately, direct, still.
Now in the park, she's shifted focus. Her boots are soft on the damp grass, as she circles the crime scene tape. SOmewhere in the middle of all this, she has tugged her hood up to hide her blond hair, tucked her braid down the back of the garment, out of site. Her hands are in her pockets, the knuckles white, the thumbs out. Dark bracelets circle her wrists, snag and pull on the folds of the cotton jacket, where it bunches around her midsection.
The blood smears seem directional, the Garou can see that. The police likely wrote it off to Cigney's struggles, the direction of the "dog" as it ran away. Wordlessly, Kora points to the smear, leading off toward the alley.
Hey, there's a lead. They'll just wander down the alley until they find -
- Kora turns, her chin rising, her dark eyes narrowing on Izzy as she offers details of the scene she herself was considering battleground - or perhaps spirit awakening - might be the only resolution.
It's on her tongue to ask where or how the Detective knows. There's a moment where she's still, between-times, considering.
Then, she tilts her head toward the alley. "Show me."
[Roman Turner] He had no idea how Izzy knew what had happened and got her details, infact, no one had formally introduced the Kin so he wasn't entirely sure who she was other than the names directed her way and the fact that Kora accepted her and asked for things. Though when the two women seemed to focus on the alley, he waited for them to enter before casually crossing the street to pretend to gawk at the isolated remains of the crime scene. What he was really doing was giving them a chance to vanish off the street before he followed. Trying not to look like he was following two women in to an alley.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul just blinked at Izzy. Head falling slightly askew, if not somewhat in askance towards Roman as he pitched it in gesture to the kin. Did he know what she were doing? Or how she seemed able to know this?
Staying with Roman, when the women were heading into the alley he finally asked. "Is that kin touched?"
[Izzy Montoya] It's on the tip of Kora's tongue to ask, and perhaps Izzy would have answered. Most likely, she would have said no, not now. There is, after all, a 'master' to find. Her only expression though, is a slight lift at the corner of her mouth, a wordless acknowledgment that yeah, they'll talk about it later.
Much later.
She spreads her fingers across her thighs, then braces them there as she pushes to her feet, using that anchor to keep herself steady, to regain her normal [outward] calm. She straightens her suit jacket across her shoulders, then slides her hand to the small of her back to unholster her preferred weapon. The runner was scared shitless. She is not going in unprepared.
She thumbs off the safety. Shakes her head a moment as if to clear the last of the words from her mind, and then gives a sharp nod. "Alright."
Another breath, steady now, and when she begins to walk that way, it's with her natural confidence, her long stride, her determined demeanor. Her gun remains in hand, at her thigh, ready yet not too conspicuous. She slows halfway down the alley, hovering close to the wall, and slinking toward the door that belongs to the address muttered by the terrified runner. She turns to meet Kora's gaze, and then nods to the door.
This is the one.
[Roman Turner] "Well, I bet she is. Though it weren't me as touched her."
Then they were all following in to the alley and along the way until they stopped and the Kin pointed out one door in particular. With this he looked for signs of a sentry and another way inside besides them all rushing through one door.
"Want me to open it?"
[Kora] The alley is filthy, of course. Dumpsters overrun with trash, stagnant pools of water in the deep cracks of the asphalt, broken glass glittering wherever the pools of light from the streetlights penetrate. Mostly, though, the alleys are deep in shadow, these long arrows of darkness cutting through the blocks of flats, rusting fire escapes barely bolted to aging brick. In the summer time, despite the stench, three quarters of those windows would be open to catch the faintest breath of breeze from the night air.
Now, though, they are closed, blinds drawn, despair contained, simmering inside the slatternly apartments, the flophouses, the Section 8 dumps, and everything in between.
Maybe 60% of the buildings are occupied. The rest are empty, the windows dark and mostly broken.
They have a long, dark walk down one foetid alley, skipping the puddles. Then a street to cross, quiet at this hour, the flare of distance headlights the only shadow against the still air - cool and moist and damp - that promises fog with every breath.
By morning, the city will be wreathed in it.
- another half-block.
The door Izzy indicates is not solid, not metal. It is not even locked. Just ajar. The building from behind is an admixture of construction styles - brick with likely illegal frame additions humped on the back of it, constructed in stages, layer upon layer.
D & D GROCERY is written into the cornerstone near the back, painted onto a fading weathered board above the windows. The Grocery is long-closed, and the whole building has an aura of disuse, of riotous decay about it.
The back windows, though, are blacked out. Are painted over. Kora balances on a milk crate to try peering in, assuming perhaps that the darkness is a trick of shadow and glass. She drops back to the ground, quiet then, shaking her head.
"I'd rather not go in blind. You wanna take a look, Roman?" Kora asks. Then, a sidelong look at Paul, her mouth set, assessing. She's standing on the back steps with Izzy now, her hand on the wooden door, which is three or four inches ajar, not moving it yet.
"If you're a decent scout, go with him. If not, hang back with us, yeah?"
Close to the door, there's a certain - scent in the air, a kind of foulness one associates only with slow-rotting flesh. The scent is faint, niggling really - but distinctive and noticeable.
[Roman Turner] He nodded, removed his hat that he set on a crate and just before he shifted he whispered to Izzy.
"Ya might not want to watch, Ma'am."
And began the shift in a series of tendon popping, bone shifting, disgusting sounds he fell to his hands and knees and his clothing melded with flesh and his face elongated to a muzzle before hair sprang out along his body. In short order, he stook in lupus and shook from nose to tail, trying for Blur before nudging the door open to slip inside.
[Paul Kellogg] "Decent? I wouldn't be a no moon if I were only decent. Sheesh..." Glancing to Roman. "I got your back little bro, lets go" In that moment his eyes went from blue to wolfish amber as the shift came upon him. Down into lupus, that mottled colour and patchwork pelt sprouted. He waited though for the younger's lead...
[Roman Turner] Blur
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Izzy Montoya] Roman suggests she might not want to watch, so she does. It's nothing she hasn't seen before, at any rate, and an arched brow signifies her defiance, and determination.
The stiffening of her spine suggests wariness. At least.
[Roman Turner] He also did the smart thing, he used his willpower for the gift of Resist Pain, just in case something heard him coming and knocked him upside his danged fool head. Then the chestnut colored wolf slipped inside and went to the left to make room for the wolf coming in behind him. Slinking in like a thief.
[Paul Kellogg] [blur]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] Paul slinked in right behind him. Quietly, going to the far left...
[Roman Turner] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Roman Turner]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 6 at target 4)
[Paul Kellogg] perception+primal urge
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 4)
[Kora] Sheesh says Paul, and she gives him a look. Remembers - briefly - another battle she fought only in memory, though then, she fought it again and again and again. Her look is still, even, not skeptical but direct, written over with memory.
By now, she has a hand on the door, holding it back as the pair of no-moons slink inside. Both are lupus, now, low to the ground and the world changes around them, the scents explode against their sharpened animal senses.
While they enter the building, she reaches up, unzips the hoodie quietly but all the way, then begins shifting it from her shoulders, stripping it from her lean frame before hanging it from the concrete lintel underneath the window.
Instead the old building, a heady array of scents intertwine - blood and rotting flesh are prominent, the scent of human waste and - more interestingly - the animal musk that sings to them not of dogs but of wolves, Garou or otherwise. There's sickness in the air, rot in the bones of the building, and in between the trails that come and go the faint scent of blood that says, Cigney to Roman.
Quiet, one behind they other, the creep through the door, one behind the other. The back room is empty, an archway beyond it leads down a long hall that eventually opens up - through a hole that has been ripped in the plaster - into the storefront that was the grocery proper. Here, they catch the low sound of voices, one low, plaintative, whining. The other deeper. Threading among the empty shelves shifted all akimbo, the rows of coolers long since unused, they find at last this hint of light, the flicker of a candle, the sweep of a flashlight.
Seated in an old barcolounger that he is treating like a throne - a grizzled looking man with a terrible scar across his face, that looks like the swiping claw of a Garou, even from a distance. It gives his mouth the sinister suggestion of an unending smile. Balled, sleeping on either side of the recliner, a pair of animals, curled up, muzzles hidden under their flanks, just their animal scent - which is wrong, somehow, not healthy but twisted - suggests that they are other than dogs. Their muzzles are hidden beneath their flanks.
Finally, kneeling in front of the scarred man, a whimping man in the shapeless, filthy overcoat that is the uniform of the homeless. Even from a distance, the pair can see that his right hand is wrong, all chitinous, like a giant lobster claw. Beside him, another figure, just as human-appearance, just as filthy, head low, silent. Her scent is female, not male, blooming with both fear and rot and a sort of roiling, undercutting rage.
[Roman Turner] His fur rose along the ridge of his spine with the scents here and across the Link between himself and Kora came a mental image of all the scents hitting him along with a pure animal whimper when Cigney's blood was sorted from the others in his mind.
When they neared the front, could finally hear and see what sat in that room, he sent the message back, the location the numbers and the memory of running in to dogs that were wrong and controlled by those who were human in appearance. He had run in them before with Cigney and Imogen.
[Paul Kellogg] Eyes were focused upon the scene before him. Silent, his body stilled. Every muscle taunt with anticipation of the battle to come. The retrobution to be delievered. But as a good soldier of Gaia's arm...he waits for the command to be given.
[Kora] Kora conveys the scene to Izzy in a series of short, direct, descriptive sentences. The dogs that are wrong, the Master in his barcolounger throne. His subjects in front of them, one with a lobster's claw for a hand. She's quiet, they're still outside, in the alley.
"I told them," she says quietly, "to remain in the shadows, to get as close as they can, and attack together when we're in place, and ready to fight. If you can handle yourself, you can join us. Target the supplicants while we attack the Master. Run if things go wrong. I won't take it amiss if you choose to remain here, or - go back to your car, but if we go into battle, I'm the Alpha, and you will follow any orders I give you. You understand that, right?"
[Kora] Pick one target, Kora instructs Roman, her mind-voice clear over their totemic connection. You and Paul. Get as close as you can, and ambush them when I let you know we're in position. Imogen's not coming, but Izzy, the Detective, my kinswoman is. She's a decent shot. I've told her to target the supplicants while we take down the master and the dogs.
[Roman Turner] His eyes glinted dull amber in the faint light in here, one moment there then gone for a second as his head turned towards Paul and his ears rose to twitch and then flatten against his head again. That sleek head flicked towards the right before he split off to slink to the left, staying low and quiet as he got in to position and waited for Paul to place himself. Hoping the other wolf picked up on his signal.
[Izzy Montoya] Kora lays down the law, and the only reaction is when she suggests that izzy can't handle herself, in a round about way - and that only gets a lopsided smirk and a soft... "This isn't my first Rodeo."
It's as much agreement as anything else would be. She checks the safety is off on the gun in hand once more, and lifts her right leg so that her fingers can brush against the one holstered at her ankle. Then, a nod. She's ready.
[Paul Kellogg] Oh Paul caught the gesture. Slinking off to the right, hackles raised, teeth bared. He snuck around to ground his position where he'd leap into the conflict.
[Kora] "I just want to make sure it's not your last, Detective." Kora returns. She's serious enough tonight that there's no curving answer drifting across her expressive mouth to respond to the smirk, just a direct look of dark-blue eyes, drifting over the kinswoman.
Then, "Alright. Let's go." Like Roman, Kora shifts then. Both the t-shirt and thermal are dedicated, and she stripped off the hoodie, that wasn't, so her clothes shift and change with her, absorded into her flesh. She sinks all the way down to her lupus form, then picks her way through the back room, down the long hall way until she comes to the gaping hole in the plaster wall. There she shifts again, bulking up into her warform, the floorboards here are solid, built to hold the weight of thousands of pounds of groceries, heavy freezers, all of it. They hold undernearth her bulk.
[Kora] Kora: dex + stealth!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] [des+stealth - Kahseeno? please don't let Izzy trip on her own feet? ok? Ok.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Ancestors - Brawl!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[Kora] Per + Alertness - Fagan.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] She has no intention of this being her last - that much is said with another brief smirk, before she watches as her Jarl slips into a sneakier form, and follows as she changes to Crinos too. Izzy, for all her mouth and bravado, is a half decent sneak herself, and follows near soundlessly... finding and taking a position where she will have a clear shot or three.
[Roman Turner] Snap shift in mid-air to Hispo and flew at dog 1.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul shifts up into Hispo, leaping at dog 2.
[Roman Turner] Attack
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 10 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 17 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 1: SOAK!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 2: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4 (Failure at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] inits! +7!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4
[Kora] Dog 1: +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[Roman Turner] Init
+9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Kora] Dog 2: +6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Paul Kellogg] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Kora] Fagan: +6 in homid.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Kora] Claw-Hand +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Kora] Stink Girl + 7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Kora] Kora: +9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Kora] Order:
Kora: 14
Roman: 12
Dog 1: 12
Izzy: 11
Paul: 9
Fagan: 9
Stink Girl: 8
Dog 2: 8
Claw-HAnd: 8
[Kora] Claw-Hand: [1. CLAW Roman.]
[Kora] Dog 2: 1. BITE Paul. Rage 1. BITE Paul.
[Kora] Stink-Girl: 1a. SPIT/HISS at Kora. 1b. RUN AWAY.
[Kora] Fagan: snapshift to Crinos! 1. Claw Kora! Rage 1: Claw Kora! Rage 2: Claw Roman!
[Paul Kellogg] 1. Bite dog Rage 1. Bite dog again
[Kora] Dog 1: 1. BITE Roman. Rage 1. BITE Roman!
[Izzy Montoya] Declare: BANG BANG BANG... and BANG! Aiming at stinky girl first, clawhand if she falls.
AKA -
1a: three round burst
1b: fire!
[Roman Turner] 1a bite claw hand
1b bite claw hand
1 r claw-claw hand
[Roman Turner] 1a bite damned dog 1
1b bite damned dog 1
1r do it again
[Kora] Kora: 1 WP - Resist Pain. 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1: BITE. Rage 2: BITE. Fagan, then moving on to whoever is standing.
[Kora] 1a. BITE -3
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5) Re-rolls: 4
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Kora] Fagan - Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kora] 1b. -4
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Kora] Fagan - Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kora] Fagan: Rage Back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]
[Kora] Fagan: -.- (Incap!)
1c. Bite: Dog 2! -5
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 2: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1a bite dog
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Kora] Dog 2: Rage back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 7 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]
[Kora] Dog 2: -.- Incap!
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 1: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kora] Rage Back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[Roman Turner] 1b bite dog
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 1: x.x
[Izzy Montoya] It is one thing to know that Garou fight. It is another to see it. They move so fast, that it blurs before normal vision, blood is flying before one has the chance to breathe, and to watch is to be distracted.
Izzy is not distracted. she steadies herself into stance, takes a breath, and fires. Three rounds in rapid burst, followed by a fourth. Under her breath she counts. "17 16 15." A pause, then "14."
1a: three round burst: dex 4 + firearms 4 + 3 = 11 - 2 (split) = 9, diff 6 (rerolls)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Izzy Montoya] 1a: damage: damage 4 + 4 diff 6
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] 1b: regular shot: dex 4 + firearms 4 = 8 - 3 (split) = 5, diff 6 (rerolls)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] reroll first damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Stink-Girl!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Izzy Montoya] 1b damage! 1b: damage: damage 4 +2 diff 6
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Stink-Gir!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Kora] Splash-back damage from acid blood - Stink-Girl on Roman
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] bite claw hand
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)
[Kora] Paul - Splash damage from Acid Blood
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Kora] Kora: Splash Damage from Acid Blood!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak! Claw-Hand
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kora] Claw-Hand claws Roman!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Kora: rage 1. Claw-Hand!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Kora] Claw-Hand Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1r bite claw hand!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] bite claw hand again with rage
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Paul Kellogg] damage
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Kora] Claw-Hand: x.x
[Kora] A normal human being with a healthy heart in a state of moderate stress or excitement would have had 6 contractions of that powerful muscle in the time it took the battle to play out. The Garou slink through the trash that has accumulated in the den, the bits and pieces of old bodies, the array of fast-food containers and broken gatorade bottles, crushed cigarette butts, the miasmic scent in the air of animals (broken) shitting where they sleep.
Almost as one, the pair of Ragabash explode from the shadows around the mockery of a Court Fagan, the "Master" was holding with his broken ones, demanding some further tribute, some new shred of information. One takes one sleeping dog, the other takes the second, tearing them open. The animals, charged with rage and strong as Garou, will not have the chance to so much as snap teeth in response.
Sorrow charges straight across the floor, barreling into the Master, tearing him open in two-sharp bites. Blood spatters hot on the walls, soaks the barcolounger that was his throne. Rage sparks him back to life, but he does not rise again.
Izzy shoots the second of the two supplicants, twice, four rounds thudding into her body. She staggers and falls, dead, as a spray of acidic blood gouts from her veins, scoring Kora's hide. The other two have thicker skins, tonight, and are uninjured.
One by one, their opponents are put down, the dogs-that-are-not, with sharp, hinged jaws and claws like daggers, the broken human with the lobster claw. The last one is inhumanly resilient, staggering back from blow after blow that would have ended a human, even a Garou, but finally Paul seizes, and rips and his instestines come slithering out in a great, distended mass, hot and steaming on the floor.
Sorrow leaves the dog that lingers on the verge of death to Paul. She herself pads over to Fagan, Crinos now, prostrate on the floor, seizes his throat in her jaws, and rips it out.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul lopes over to the fallen dog, ripping out his throat and finishing the job. Shifting then to Crinos for the use of his thumbs. He lumbers back to the crab claw and begins twisting and turning the creatures forarm just beneath it's elbow. Eventually tearing the limb off. Wrapping it then in foul paper to carry off as a trophy should the Alpha Kora not wish it for her own.
[Izzy Montoya] Izzy does not lower her weapon, instead shifting her sights to search for a new target as they fall, one by one by one. She does not lower the weapon until after the beast that is Kora rips out the throat of King Fagan. And then, for a brief moment, her sights are on the Jarl, before she finally lowers the weapon, inch by inch, and lets her arm fall so that it hangs by her thigh, ready to reach up again.
Six seconds.
She takes a breath, holds it, and lets it out again. Only then does she holster her weapon, and turn to make her way outside for a breath of fresh air.
[Roman Turner] This place reeked of death, rot and now the sweet smell of revenge. He wanted to howl to the heavens and shook with the effort it took to hold it in. Slowly his form melted back to homid and he followed the Kin back outside to retrieve his hat while finally blows and trophy gathering took place.
"Ya done good Miss Izzy."
[Izzy Montoya] Miss Izzy. That's new. She looks over at Roman, and with less than her normal conviction and minus any and all venom, she corrects with something that's almost a smile.
"Detective."
Someone has a soft spot for southern boys - though she'd be the first to deny it.
[Roman Turner] She asked for it, just like Imogen. So as he brushed his hat off and placed it on his head, he said.
"Miss Detective Izzy, ma'am."
[Kora] There are trophies to be gathered, and corpses to clean up. Sorrow shakes her great head, wuffs softly to Paul as he takes the lobster-claw arm of the cursed man, dead now. He should take it for himself.
What follows is grim, stinking work. She harvests eyeballs from the corpses for the Hrafn, and the bones of the dead to be burned with Cigney's corpse. After the battle, she is silent, working efficiently, grimly, her eyes dry, her rage still bright inside her, in her gut, underneath her skin.
[Izzy Montoya] That gets him a huff of amusement, dangerously close to laughter. "Close enough."
[Paul Kellogg] Shifting down back into his homid form. Wrapped appendage tucked beneath his arm. A look about the place, smug with satisfaction. A glance to Kora. "I can assist with rites of cleansing....." Though an eye were given to her wounds. He'd have asked if she needed them mended...but the last time he asked a Fenrir such...he almost got struck for it.
[Roman Turner] He spent his time waiting, watching and guarding Izzy until his Alpha asked for him. Small talk, he was fair at it. And he had every intention of trying to heal Kora, even if it meant waiting till she was sleeping and denying any knowledge of it.
The church is still, and dark. Leaves are starting to change on the trees that have grown up around the ruin, shielding the view of the big stone walls from the street.
Kora sits on the steps, near the top, on the long, wide portico. She has a reasonable view of the street, the gates of the old chain link fencing put up by someone - maybe the diocese - to keep vagrants out years ago are pulled open, wide. They've been like that for years, rust stains the sidewalk. The fence is covered by twisting vines, and these are starting to turn colors, too. The leaves are yellow, the fruits falling off.
The earth turns away from the sun.
Her usual clothing is supplemented by a long-sleeved thermal undershirt and zippered hoodie in shades of blue, the colors are muted but saturated, receding in the darkness.
Dinner time. She searches through a white paper bag filled with take-out chinese, pushing past Roman's choices looking for her container of hot and sour soup.
[Roman Turner] He was waiting his turn at the bag while he sat on the steps with her. As usual he was in a hat, but it was cooler and night, the summer weight hat was replaced with a black Stetson. Brass buttons glinted faintly down the front of the open jean jacket he wore as he sat hunched forward, forearms resting across his thighs.
"Colder here than home. Confuses my internal clock, ya know?"
Not that the cooler weather bothered him, instead it just screwed with his memory sense.
[Imogen] She sees Imogen through the chain link fence, recognizes her because of her brilliant hair, even muted in fading light of dusk, because of her stature, because of the way she moves. Her hands are pocketed in her corduroy jacket, her back is straight.
She turns her head when she feels the Skald's gaze on her. The doctor's gaze has always been direct, and it is no different with the moon full, with the Garou's rage high.
She steps through the open gates, her flat shoes near silent on the concrete, and moves silently until she's within speaking distance. When she inhales, she can smell the grease of the Chinese food. It reminds her of Kemp.
"Cigney's dead," she says without preamble. "I ha' in the morgue."
[Imogen] (holy crap, I didn't see Roman log in at all! *LOL*)
[Imogen] (lemme repost real quick.)
[Imogen] They can see Imogen through the chain link fence, recognizes her because of her brilliant hair, even muted in fading light of dusk, because of her stature, because of the way she moves. Her hands are pocketed in her corduroy jacket, her back is straight.
When she senses one, or the other or both looking at her, she turns her head. Her gaze is direct even at this distance, even with the moon full, their rage high.
She steps through the open gates, her flat shoes near silent on the concrete, and moves silently until she's within speaking distance. When she inhales, she can smell the grease of the Chinese food. It reminds her of Kemp.
"Cigney's dead," she says without preamble. "I ha' her body in the morgue."
[Kora] "Never developed that internal clock, not 'til after, myself, yeah?" After changing, she means. Now, that feels innate, the seasons move under her skin like water. She knows the earth the way few humans can, or will. " - moved around too much. Arizona one year, Maine the next. That screws with your sense of the seasons."
The cup of soup is open, by then. Kora's taken her first sip, tentative, and her second, deeper when she knows the liquid will not burn her tongue. Then she catches sight of Imogen's hair like a flare against the darkness, and turns, setting her cup of soup off to the side, cinching the lid back down, brushing off her hands on the worn thighs of her jeans.
There's an instinct to stand, when Imogen is close enough. That's old, embedded - some fundamental courtesy she carries inside her. - but she stays the instinct. Imogen has stopped at foot of the steps, maybe a few steps up. Standing would just make her that much taller.
Instead, she remains seated, and stills at the news, gritting her teeth, a spasm of tendon in her jaw as her rage sparks and flares, sickening, turning her stomach. Kora swallows against her gorge and breathes out, knuckles white, her hands fisted, nails digging into her thighs.
"Fuck." she says, low and sharp, with feeling, breathing out hard. Abrupt. She lifts her chin then, looks away, down the street, scene through the scrim of overgrown trees and vines. " - how?" Quieter, her voice, but no less hard.
[Roman Turner] He was just digging in the bag for his dinner when Imogen appeared with the dead news. Unlike Kora, he was on his feet in an instant, hat removed with the brim cupped in his hand, the opening pressed against his chest.
"What happened?"
[Izzy Montoya] There are any number of reasons that would have Izzy in this neighborhood, and most of them involve doors wrapped in yellow tape, victims carted off in body bags, little splotches of blood identified with white numbered markers, strong fingers encased in blue gloves to protect fingerprints found, and other such things. Tonight is no different, and the walk back to her car takes her past a certain abandoned church.
Fate is a funny thing, after all.
Her walk is distinctive - she's been accused of walking like a man, often enough, but what it is is a stride of purpose, of intent. She's aware of her surroundings, for all her attention is on the phone in her hand and the message on it.
[Imogen] Imogen's gaze fixes on the Garou on their reaction, a wariness that is far from fear as rage sparks and reactions come, sharply restrained. Roman gets the most attention - getting to his feet as he does.
But neither lose control - she does not relax, but after a moment, she answers, replying to their dual questions.
"She was found dead in a park, a knife in hand. There were multiple sharp force injuries to the front, back and side. Claw marks. S'not Garou, s'too big t'be animal." She shakes her head slightly. "Unfortunately th'wyrm doesn't keep me up t'date on their abominations."
A pause.
"The knife was soaked wi' blood and so was her sleeve and wrist. She died fighting."
She says it without sympathy - but simply as a fact that might as well be said.
[Roman Turner] He just didn't get why Kinfolk insisted on walking through the parks and bad parts of town at night, especially knowing what was out there. At the moment that irony was pushed in to silence as the person came in to sight. Izzy was not someone that sparked memory for him so when he spotted her he stepped down from the porch and closer to Imogen. Speaking softly as he replaced the hat on his head and neared Imogen.
"That's a right shame. I'm sorry for the loss."
[Kora] The world constricts, in moments like these, to a set series of reference points. Aware of her packmate, standing, close enough that her shoulder brushes his leg, aware of his rage, her own, and the moon in the sky, hidden behind the clouds, huge and round. She is aware of the way her breath frosts out of her mouth, a quiet cloud.
Cigney died fighting, Imogen says. Kora's generous mouth flattens, her nostrils flare. In the days after the moot, Kora met one of the new-come Fenrir in the Sept, among the graves, told him the story of Lexi Jonsen's death. Read out to him the names of the Fenrir dead as she circled the monuments. She died, he said, like a Fenrir should.
A good death, he judged it.
She makes no such judgments.
"Can you show us where it happened?" She remains seated, her lean frame taut. Uncurling her fists, spreading her hands out over her thighs, staring off sharply past Imogen's shoulder, before returning her attention to the kinswoman. Briefly, her eyes touch on Izzy, nearly unseeing except for the sharp curl of breeding that sparks an animal response in her, under her skin.
Then she swallows, a winging glance back to the kinswoman, direct. "I want the body, too." That's rather more quiet. "I don't want - " what, her flat mouth whitens as she bites something back. She doesn't want Imogen's instruments underneath the woman's skin. She doesn't want her splayed open on a stainless steel table, under unforgiving lights. The mere thought strikes a visceral reaction in her. She voices none of it.
[Izzy Montoya] There's something about being watched by the Garou that is distinctly different than being watched by mere mortals. It's very much like feeling stalked, like someone - no, something is watching, deciding if someone is dinner, and deciding that yes, yum, tasty flesh. The creepy crawly feeling at the back of the neck, fine hairs lifting in effort to run away themselves, spine stiffening, muscles tensing, the sudden desire to run, run far, run now...
Izzy does not give in to any such feeling. She is Fenrir. She is a decorated Detective. She is, quite possibly, insane. Either way, when the eyes of the Garou find her, she takes a breath, and looks up from her phone to find the source of her sudden discomfort, and in so doing, discovers the unmistakeble glint of fire-red hair, and the presence of the Jarl. Her Jarl, one would say. She.. simply wouldn't say at all.
She pauses, however, outside of the gate, and nods in their direction. A hello, of sorts.
[Imogen] Imogen's eyebrow arches slightly toward Roman. "Say it to yer packmate," she says, lifting her chin slightly toward Kora. "S'a loss t'her tribe."
She turns her head toward Kora as she speaks. "I can only release th'body t' her relatives," she says. "S'in the system, now, and there's only so much I can do in tha' respect." There is a steadiness to what she says; she does not flinch from this defiance.
She pauses at the question. "I can show yeh the park," she says, "and the general area, but th'body was picked up by one o' the medical examiners; they didn't see fit t'need t'ha' a forensic pathologist come out."
Both Garou's gazes flick toward Izzy as she passes them by - in response, Imogen turns to glance over her shoulder.
She speaks, then, raising her voice to be heard. "Detective Montoya," she calls out. "C'mere a moment, will yeh?"
[Roman Turner] Kora knew what he felt in a sense as he felt the anger and loss seeping across from her across the link. For his part, his soul answered with sorrow, that sick little feeling. At his age, he was still immortal, he'd not had many close to him die yet. So accepting someone wasn't around anymore, was a vague notion. Instead he sort of replaced dead with vacation in his brain.
He remained where he was, watching Izzy, though Imogen's sort of greeting relaxed him enough to reach up to the crown of his hat where he gripped it enough to lift the hat an inch of his head with a nod to Izzy.
"Ma'am."
[Kora] "Norway," Kora returns. Her voice is low, she has a stillness about her that is defined by tense muscles, by a certain promise of motion-to-come. Her voice is low and rought, nostrils flaring with something, some underlying anger that is different than the unseeing spark of rage. " - they're in fucking Norway. Ran off and left her here to sink or swim alone."
The Chinese food is cooling on the steps, mostly forgotten now. The hot and sour soup will not be consumed tonight. Maybe she'll pour it out someplace away from their den, to feed whatever animal-things make their living in the hard-scrabble industrial territory they claim. Maybe she'll drink it cold in the morning.
Breakfast of champions.
"There's got to be some kind of release they can sign, right? Let me take care of it as her second cousin twice removed, by marriage."
This has the ghost of a smile drifting across her mouth, a still one, sick with feeling. She lifts her chin, her head moving in an animal cant as her eyes travel over Roman's profile, the emotions leaking across the link clear to her.
Abruptly she stands, "Detective," greeting Izzy when she comes closer, the word flat as a board, business-like. Dusting off her hands on the thighs of her jeans, she bends over, picks up the Chinese food, rolling the opening of the bag closed before she sets that too aside on the porch, the portico.
[Izzy Montoya] Imogen asks her to come over, and after the briefest of hesitations, during which Roman nods and calls her old ma'am, she nods. "Of course, Doctor Slaughter."
She slips past the gate, and in a few long strides joins them at the steps, remaining apart just a tough, though close enough to speak without need to raise their voice. She stops short when Kora stands abruptly, and then after a moment, she nods again, this time to the Jarl first "Kora." and another to Roman.
She stops short of calling him sir in retaliation. barely.
[Imogen] Imogen glances back over her shoulder at Kora as she speaks. Once must admit, the kinwoman appears entirely cold in this. Her expression hard but unreadable beyond that. Each word quiet and controlled.
Kora is barely leashed Rage, Roman is sorry for the loss and Imogen - well.
She is doing her duty, as she sees it, to the letter.
"I'll see what I can do," she says, "but we should p'raps find a kinfolk t'receive th'remains. Th'less visibility yeh ha', the better."
Back to Izzy.
"Ha' yeh heard about the park case?" she says. "It 'appened a few days ago. S'kinfolk, and it's a veil breech," however slight.
"I've signed out th'death certificate wi' a cause o' death as 'multiple injuries due to animal attack', but I imagine there will still be an investigation." Her head tilts slightly, indicating the detective, "Anythin' yeh can do to help support my findings or at least nudge the investigatin' detective in tha' direction would be appreciated."
[Roman Turner] (oh hey, don't go in order. I mean, don't wait for me )
to Imogen, Izzy Montoya, Kora
[Roman Turner] (oh hey, don't go in order. I mean, don't wait for me )
to Imogen, Izzy Montoya, Kora
[Paul Kellogg] The bumble-bee yellow humvee slows as it drives up the street. Pulling to a stop and park two car lengths up from the quartet. Paul steps out. Wearing faded jeans, those simple toe shoes and a solid blue tee that was form fitting.
A bright smile on his face as he steps upon the curb, heading their way. Casting a curt wave. "Heya folks...."
[Kora] "There anything you need?" this is an aside to Roman, as Imogen turns to discuss the particulars of covering up the veil-breech. Of steering the investigation, of moving things around so that the mortal authorities will be and remain satisfied that one Cigney North, nineteen years old, surfer girl from California with eyes that will be memorialized as "gray" in her official records rather than silvery, died from an animal attack. A pit-bull on the loose, some fighting dog. Doberman or German Shepherd - something ordinary, quotidian.
Something that preserves the Veil.
Kora's question to her packmate is aloud, though. Underneath, there's a faint nudge along the link, feeling Resistance's presence out there, at the Caern, maybe, then deciding in the end that there's no point in summoning her too, in waiting any longer.
This is how you go to war: in a zipped up hoodie in gradations of blue, hair pulled back, in a black t-shirt that doesn't show blood, a white thermal undershirt for warmth, that does. Standing, she reaches back, shakes her hair loose from its knot, finger combs the curling locks free, and then begins to plait it, a French braid, her fingers running expertly through the strands. " - I'm ready when you are."
Kora waits until Izzy and Imgen have finished their exchange. Then, " - if you don't mind, Detective, come with us, yeah? Could use your eyes."
[Izzy Montoya] A brow arches slightly as Imogen gives her a quick rundown, and there's a flicker of something in her gaze, unreadable and brief. By the end, though, she nods, slightly. "I've heard of it - it's not my case, but I can see what I can do." In fact the wheels are already turning. She's owed a couple of favors, it should be easily enough to nudge them in supporting the doctor's decision.
Fortunately, she's very good at her job - both of them.
Kora invites her along to see where it happened, and she nods, slightly. "Of course." Her eyes, and possibly other talents, depending on the area in question. Not that she's ever let Kora know exactly what she could do...
[Roman Turner] He was in the midst of trying to come to terms with a pretty girl just dying like that. She had set him up and shot him down cold, but he'd not wished death on her. Now he sort of felt guilty that somehow he'd made her end up dead. Kora asked and he shook his head as he wrestled with the nearly overwhelming need to have his cousin close.
"No ma'am, Miss Kora."
About that time Paul turned and waved, greeting them and he returned the wave and muttered to Kora.
"Paul's coming this way."
Like she couldn't see that herself.
[Imogen] Imogen nods slightly. "I appreciate it." She says, simply. "I'll do th'same from my end." The conversation is a brief, transitory window into something normally kept to the background. It's there a moment, then it's gone. The women have said all they need to each other. They'll work separately now, both for the same goal.
She turns her head slightly to Kora, nodding slightly, then glancing toward Paul as he approaches.
"H'lo," she says, her accent truncating the vowel of her greeting - what might have once been 'Hullo' to almost nothingness.
A glance toward his car, "Bit conspicuous for this area o' town, aren't yeh?"
Even as she speaks, she is reaching into the pocket of her corduroy jacket, retrieving a set of car keys.
[Kora] Then Paul pulls up, in his bright yellow hummer, parks it on a mostly desolate industrial street not far from the entrance to an old derelict church, built in the neo-gothic style. The building has been abandoned for twenty five years, and is surrounded by a riot of trashy trees, locusts mostly, a tangle, survival of the fittest and fastest-growing, the deepest roots in the worst soil.
He's smiling. They aren't. Imogen and Izzy are on the concrete sidewalk leading to the wide steps that lead to the portico, proper. Roman stands close by. Kora is near the top of the steps, dressed in a worn jeans and a hoodie over a thermal and t-shirt that add bulk to her frame, her arms up behind her head, rapidly plaiting her hair.
" - yuf," Kora greets Paul as he becomes visible, offers his salutations. There's no answering smile. Kora is working her way down the steps, her hands still employed twisting her braid together. When she's close enough to Roman, she brushes past him, close physical contact, reassurance.
[Roman Turner] He brushed back against Kora and followed her till he got close enough to Paul to say in a soft voice.
"Cigney's dead."
Letting the other Coggie know why everyone was so solemn.
[Izzy Montoya] She turns as Paul says hello, but she doesn't reply. Instead, her comment is for Kora, Imogen.
"My car is one block down." An unspoken invitation for those who might need a ride, as well as a simple statement that she intends to drive herself, to make it easier to hit the station afterwards. And with that, she's following Kora back to the street.
[Paul Kellogg] A quick nod to Imogen, but his smile never wavered. "Perhaps...but I liake it" Wiggling his brows at her. "Nice to see ya gain Doc" But his gaze takes on the others. Before Roman's words even registered, his smile had wavered. Roman didn't appear his happy self, and hell neither did Kora...
Tilting his head, his smile faded to nill in an instant. []"Im sorry..what? Cigney? The blonde kin? I just saw her a few days ago...how?"[/b]
[Roman Turner] "Seems she ran in to trouble in a park. Her body was found with a knife in hand. Something tore her up, but looks like she tried to fight it off."
Went down fighting didn't sound right, that was too Wild West and didn't fit with a pretty girl dying. She'd put her fingers against his skin once, touched him. She'd hugged him, surprising and confusing the hell out of him. Then she'd set him up and shot him down another time. Still it just didn't make sense, she was too young to die, wasn't she?"
[Paul Kellogg] "Well Gawd Damn, sheit...Im sorry man..what can I do to help?" Shocked, he had alittle trouble digesting the news. Never thought he'd not see her again..or hell even get a chance to use any of her skills in aiding with his hairbrained ideas. "...ya'll got any ideas who or what did it?"
[Imogen] A brief glance at Izzy, a brief flicker of smirk, "Mine as well." She says, though there is no humour behind it. Paul said it was nice to see her again. Imogen glances his way but does not respond.
At his question, she had started to draw breath to answer - but Roman says it first.
"Not a friend of yer kind, that's fer sure," she does, however, answer the last question, mildly.
[Imogen] (okay, folks, just a heads up, I need to start doing some work, which may result in long silences from me. Kind of inconvenient since Imogen's rather embroiled in the scene, but there it is! if you don't have to wait for me, please don't!)
[Roman Turner] "Miss Doctor Slaughter is gonna take us where it happened in the faint hopes we might find some clue as to what did it. Ya want to come along? I'm sure the more eyes, ears and noses the better."
He however did look towards his Alpha to make sure he wasn't stepping on Fenrir territory with this.
[Kora] Kora's generous mouth is still; in the amber lights, the discs of her dark eyes sheen like liquid metal as she reaches the base of the stone steps and glances up, looking from Roman to Paul, to Izzy, to Imogen.
"We're going to see what we can find, and kill it if we find it." Whatever killed the kinswoman. Kora says that with an air of finality
[Kora] (gah! ignore!)
[Paul Kellogg] "One of the reasons I came here was to chat with Kora about this kin..but that chat wont matter now. It would be remiss of me not to aid ya Roman, or your pack...I'd like to know who's responsible and do em in. Weather we liake our kin or not...we don't let em get slain. Besides, I owe Kora for her generousity with August during my absence...so Im in if ya'll have me"
[Kora] Kora's generous mouth is still; in the amber lights, the discs of her dark eyes sheen like liquid metal as she reaches the base of the stone steps and glances up, looking from Roman to Paul, to Izzy, to Imogen.
"We're going to see what we can find, and kill it if we find it." Whatever killed the kinswoman. Kora says that with an air of finality. Roman invites Paul along, and Kora shoots him a look, her pale head tilted. By now, her braid is finished. She secures it with an elastic band, a proper hair band rather than a cheap rubber band from someone's morning newspaper. "You're welcome, but there's no acting out in this. You come with us right now, That's Great, you follow when you need to follow. If you can abide by that, you're welcome."
Then, she shoots a glance at his Hummer. "Leave your ride, here. Best not to be associated with a crime scene. Detective, Doc, Roman, Paul and I would appreciate a ride."
[Roman Turner] He looked at his Tribe's man to see how his Alpha's words set with him. Then touching the brim of his hat, he followed Kora, commenting over his shoulder to Paul.
"Hope ya ain't fond of them rims."
[Izzy Montoya] She glances around. "Alright then."
She turns then, to finish the walk she had started and aborted with the invitation of the Doc. A tip of her head invites those that are riding with her to join her, but she does not slow down. They're Garou, they can keep up.
As promised, down the block is a non-descript yet obviously unmarked police issue vehicle. Boxy, brown, four door, and likely with an engine supped up more than one would think. There's rusts in spots, the doors when they get to it creak when they're pulled opened. But it runs, and it runs better than expected. Izzy says nothing, simply presses the button on the keyring she pulls from her pocket, unlocking the doors.
[Paul Kellogg] "I've left her in worst places friend" With a soft chuckle to Roman. He only nodded to Kora. He was in, he knew the drill. He might be without a pack at the moment, but he's always been a team player. Following her guidance. He keyed his pad for the alarm and locks and pocketed it.
[Roman Turner] He was willing to pile in the back seat of the car with Paul. Hat pulled off before climbing in. His brain was still chasing it's own tail in circles as he tried to make sense of the death. It still didn't seem real because he hadn't seen her broken, dead. And he was getting that bleed from Kora that made his chest tight.
[Paul Kellogg] Climbing into the back with Roman. A slow shake of his head as he let a breath out. "Fuckin kin killers..."
[Kora] The park is small. One of those half-block green spaces built by some well-meaning philanthropist. There's a name etched into a concrete slab near the the entrance to the place, though now it is covered over in graffity and bird-shirt, because after the big gift of ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars, after the ribbon cutting and the dedication that brought out all the city's dignitaries to bask in the reflected glow of Something Positive -
- the place hasn't been visited except by the grass-mowing crew. The annuals were left to die in the planting beds, the playground equipment gradually stolen or coopted by the homeless or neighboring gangs. The grass is mowed by big machines in a matter of minutes. No one bothers to pick up the crack vials or the discarded butts of blunts. The sandbox stinks of urine from the neighborhood's stray cats, the hinged lid meant to prevent that was broken the first week the place was open. There are slats missing from the park benches, and human feces in the bushes.
And a crime scene, where the alley bisects the park, cutting it right in half.
Death by dog attack doesn't merit surveillance on the crime scene. No one bothered to call in the forensic team. Now there's just yellow tape to mark the place, wrapped around the post of a non-functioning path light, and a pair of convenient trees. The path is asphalt, solid. In the dark, it is hard to see the blood. The trees here are young, slender. Planted last summer, the summer before, before the grand opening. They're growing, because their roots are in the ground.
They're growing.
They parked down the block, away. Drifted down here in ones and twos rather than as a big knot of bodies, and now Kora stands at the edge of the tape, frowning closely, searching the dark, quiet scene.
"No other bodies found here?" This to Imogen, to Izzy.
Her hands are in her pockets. There's no ease to her, tonight.
[Roman Turner] His head turned towards Paul in the dark backseat and he spoke in a low voice to him.
"So, ya got hitched, right? Got a youngun?"
He made small talk till they got out of the car, then he replaced his hat and moseyed in a round about way towards the crime scene, taking a route across the street from it so he got a wide angle on the area while Kora got a more close up view.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul stayed out of the way, though that didn't stop him from gazing around the park. Trying to get a feel for the scene himself. Though the scents he picked up were nothing he'd care to bask in.
He'd responded to Roman's questions in the car during their ride. Yes, he claimed August as his mate...Yes the youngin he claims too. That they live in a large warehouse near the Caern that once housed his pack...but since their departure it's empty save for he and his kin
[Izzy Montoya] When they arrive, she pauses before getting out of the car to add a spare firearm to holster at her ankle. She also checks the rounds in the one at the small of ehr back, before re-holstering it as well. Only then does she step outside, and lock the door behind them as they exit. They're likely glad to get out of the car - for a cop, she has a casual disregard for things like.. red lights and speed limits. Poor unsuspecting Garou....
She's quiet when they arrive. She's in work mode now, and her jaw is determinedly set. There is very little that she misses on an average day, and now is no different. However, her methods may seem.. unconventional to those that watch as she steps under the flickering tape, and sinks to a crouch. A steadying breath and then she...
....listens.
[Echo, echo, do I hear an echo? Per+emp, diff 7, reroll 10s, COME ON KAHSEENO, GIMME WHAT I NEED!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1
[Izzy Montoya] It comes in a wave - so much, so fast, that she actually flinches, expressions flashing across her face in quick succession. There are so few that know what she can do, that understand that she's more than just a badass detective with the ability to understand a scene better than any other. She has a gift, and for the first time in years, she's using it in front of another Garou. Willingly.
alms, alms for the poor
bless you child
that's jasper a friend...
you hurt Jasper!
Is that the best you've got?
I'm ready...
You're best shot... make it count this time...
Her breath has quickened, and her muscles tense, body falling into fight or flight mode despite the fact she remains crouched where she is. The clench of her fists give it away, the grind of her jaw, the lines that mar her forehead, as she relives what happened here through sounds and voices that happened days ago.
And when it's over
the body falls, the last breath escapes, the thud echoed with another flinch from the usually steady detective, the knife clatters to the ground, and...
She opens her eyes, and snaps her head to the left, to the alleyway. She starts to speak, but her voice won't work for a moment. She swallows, and drags a hand over her face, unsurprised (yet irritated) to find her fingers trembling.
"There. About a block into the alleyway. There were three of them - Cigney took out two. The third muttered the address to someone called he called Master. He was scared shitless."
[Kora] There are limits to hunting in the city. The park is dark and quiet, but there are building all around. The trees are something of a screen for the path form the street. Still, there's no practical way for the Garou to shift her, to give in to their feral senses without endangering the veil. Kora rides shotgun, looks back briefly, her face a ghost in the darkness, as Roman makes small talk asking about August. She doesn't ask any questions herself, about August or her child, just absorbs Paul's responses with this quiet focus, immediately, direct, still.
Now in the park, she's shifted focus. Her boots are soft on the damp grass, as she circles the crime scene tape. SOmewhere in the middle of all this, she has tugged her hood up to hide her blond hair, tucked her braid down the back of the garment, out of site. Her hands are in her pockets, the knuckles white, the thumbs out. Dark bracelets circle her wrists, snag and pull on the folds of the cotton jacket, where it bunches around her midsection.
The blood smears seem directional, the Garou can see that. The police likely wrote it off to Cigney's struggles, the direction of the "dog" as it ran away. Wordlessly, Kora points to the smear, leading off toward the alley.
Hey, there's a lead. They'll just wander down the alley until they find -
- Kora turns, her chin rising, her dark eyes narrowing on Izzy as she offers details of the scene she herself was considering battleground - or perhaps spirit awakening - might be the only resolution.
It's on her tongue to ask where or how the Detective knows. There's a moment where she's still, between-times, considering.
Then, she tilts her head toward the alley. "Show me."
[Roman Turner] He had no idea how Izzy knew what had happened and got her details, infact, no one had formally introduced the Kin so he wasn't entirely sure who she was other than the names directed her way and the fact that Kora accepted her and asked for things. Though when the two women seemed to focus on the alley, he waited for them to enter before casually crossing the street to pretend to gawk at the isolated remains of the crime scene. What he was really doing was giving them a chance to vanish off the street before he followed. Trying not to look like he was following two women in to an alley.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul just blinked at Izzy. Head falling slightly askew, if not somewhat in askance towards Roman as he pitched it in gesture to the kin. Did he know what she were doing? Or how she seemed able to know this?
Staying with Roman, when the women were heading into the alley he finally asked. "Is that kin touched?"
[Izzy Montoya] It's on the tip of Kora's tongue to ask, and perhaps Izzy would have answered. Most likely, she would have said no, not now. There is, after all, a 'master' to find. Her only expression though, is a slight lift at the corner of her mouth, a wordless acknowledgment that yeah, they'll talk about it later.
Much later.
She spreads her fingers across her thighs, then braces them there as she pushes to her feet, using that anchor to keep herself steady, to regain her normal [outward] calm. She straightens her suit jacket across her shoulders, then slides her hand to the small of her back to unholster her preferred weapon. The runner was scared shitless. She is not going in unprepared.
She thumbs off the safety. Shakes her head a moment as if to clear the last of the words from her mind, and then gives a sharp nod. "Alright."
Another breath, steady now, and when she begins to walk that way, it's with her natural confidence, her long stride, her determined demeanor. Her gun remains in hand, at her thigh, ready yet not too conspicuous. She slows halfway down the alley, hovering close to the wall, and slinking toward the door that belongs to the address muttered by the terrified runner. She turns to meet Kora's gaze, and then nods to the door.
This is the one.
[Roman Turner] "Well, I bet she is. Though it weren't me as touched her."
Then they were all following in to the alley and along the way until they stopped and the Kin pointed out one door in particular. With this he looked for signs of a sentry and another way inside besides them all rushing through one door.
"Want me to open it?"
[Kora] The alley is filthy, of course. Dumpsters overrun with trash, stagnant pools of water in the deep cracks of the asphalt, broken glass glittering wherever the pools of light from the streetlights penetrate. Mostly, though, the alleys are deep in shadow, these long arrows of darkness cutting through the blocks of flats, rusting fire escapes barely bolted to aging brick. In the summer time, despite the stench, three quarters of those windows would be open to catch the faintest breath of breeze from the night air.
Now, though, they are closed, blinds drawn, despair contained, simmering inside the slatternly apartments, the flophouses, the Section 8 dumps, and everything in between.
Maybe 60% of the buildings are occupied. The rest are empty, the windows dark and mostly broken.
They have a long, dark walk down one foetid alley, skipping the puddles. Then a street to cross, quiet at this hour, the flare of distance headlights the only shadow against the still air - cool and moist and damp - that promises fog with every breath.
By morning, the city will be wreathed in it.
- another half-block.
The door Izzy indicates is not solid, not metal. It is not even locked. Just ajar. The building from behind is an admixture of construction styles - brick with likely illegal frame additions humped on the back of it, constructed in stages, layer upon layer.
D & D GROCERY is written into the cornerstone near the back, painted onto a fading weathered board above the windows. The Grocery is long-closed, and the whole building has an aura of disuse, of riotous decay about it.
The back windows, though, are blacked out. Are painted over. Kora balances on a milk crate to try peering in, assuming perhaps that the darkness is a trick of shadow and glass. She drops back to the ground, quiet then, shaking her head.
"I'd rather not go in blind. You wanna take a look, Roman?" Kora asks. Then, a sidelong look at Paul, her mouth set, assessing. She's standing on the back steps with Izzy now, her hand on the wooden door, which is three or four inches ajar, not moving it yet.
"If you're a decent scout, go with him. If not, hang back with us, yeah?"
Close to the door, there's a certain - scent in the air, a kind of foulness one associates only with slow-rotting flesh. The scent is faint, niggling really - but distinctive and noticeable.
[Roman Turner] He nodded, removed his hat that he set on a crate and just before he shifted he whispered to Izzy.
"Ya might not want to watch, Ma'am."
And began the shift in a series of tendon popping, bone shifting, disgusting sounds he fell to his hands and knees and his clothing melded with flesh and his face elongated to a muzzle before hair sprang out along his body. In short order, he stook in lupus and shook from nose to tail, trying for Blur before nudging the door open to slip inside.
[Paul Kellogg] "Decent? I wouldn't be a no moon if I were only decent. Sheesh..." Glancing to Roman. "I got your back little bro, lets go" In that moment his eyes went from blue to wolfish amber as the shift came upon him. Down into lupus, that mottled colour and patchwork pelt sprouted. He waited though for the younger's lead...
[Roman Turner] Blur
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Izzy Montoya] Roman suggests she might not want to watch, so she does. It's nothing she hasn't seen before, at any rate, and an arched brow signifies her defiance, and determination.
The stiffening of her spine suggests wariness. At least.
[Roman Turner] He also did the smart thing, he used his willpower for the gift of Resist Pain, just in case something heard him coming and knocked him upside his danged fool head. Then the chestnut colored wolf slipped inside and went to the left to make room for the wolf coming in behind him. Slinking in like a thief.
[Paul Kellogg] [blur]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] Paul slinked in right behind him. Quietly, going to the far left...
[Roman Turner] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Roman Turner]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 6 at target 4)
[Paul Kellogg] perception+primal urge
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 4)
[Kora] Sheesh says Paul, and she gives him a look. Remembers - briefly - another battle she fought only in memory, though then, she fought it again and again and again. Her look is still, even, not skeptical but direct, written over with memory.
By now, she has a hand on the door, holding it back as the pair of no-moons slink inside. Both are lupus, now, low to the ground and the world changes around them, the scents explode against their sharpened animal senses.
While they enter the building, she reaches up, unzips the hoodie quietly but all the way, then begins shifting it from her shoulders, stripping it from her lean frame before hanging it from the concrete lintel underneath the window.
Instead the old building, a heady array of scents intertwine - blood and rotting flesh are prominent, the scent of human waste and - more interestingly - the animal musk that sings to them not of dogs but of wolves, Garou or otherwise. There's sickness in the air, rot in the bones of the building, and in between the trails that come and go the faint scent of blood that says, Cigney to Roman.
Quiet, one behind they other, the creep through the door, one behind the other. The back room is empty, an archway beyond it leads down a long hall that eventually opens up - through a hole that has been ripped in the plaster - into the storefront that was the grocery proper. Here, they catch the low sound of voices, one low, plaintative, whining. The other deeper. Threading among the empty shelves shifted all akimbo, the rows of coolers long since unused, they find at last this hint of light, the flicker of a candle, the sweep of a flashlight.
Seated in an old barcolounger that he is treating like a throne - a grizzled looking man with a terrible scar across his face, that looks like the swiping claw of a Garou, even from a distance. It gives his mouth the sinister suggestion of an unending smile. Balled, sleeping on either side of the recliner, a pair of animals, curled up, muzzles hidden under their flanks, just their animal scent - which is wrong, somehow, not healthy but twisted - suggests that they are other than dogs. Their muzzles are hidden beneath their flanks.
Finally, kneeling in front of the scarred man, a whimping man in the shapeless, filthy overcoat that is the uniform of the homeless. Even from a distance, the pair can see that his right hand is wrong, all chitinous, like a giant lobster claw. Beside him, another figure, just as human-appearance, just as filthy, head low, silent. Her scent is female, not male, blooming with both fear and rot and a sort of roiling, undercutting rage.
[Roman Turner] His fur rose along the ridge of his spine with the scents here and across the Link between himself and Kora came a mental image of all the scents hitting him along with a pure animal whimper when Cigney's blood was sorted from the others in his mind.
When they neared the front, could finally hear and see what sat in that room, he sent the message back, the location the numbers and the memory of running in to dogs that were wrong and controlled by those who were human in appearance. He had run in them before with Cigney and Imogen.
[Paul Kellogg] Eyes were focused upon the scene before him. Silent, his body stilled. Every muscle taunt with anticipation of the battle to come. The retrobution to be delievered. But as a good soldier of Gaia's arm...he waits for the command to be given.
[Kora] Kora conveys the scene to Izzy in a series of short, direct, descriptive sentences. The dogs that are wrong, the Master in his barcolounger throne. His subjects in front of them, one with a lobster's claw for a hand. She's quiet, they're still outside, in the alley.
"I told them," she says quietly, "to remain in the shadows, to get as close as they can, and attack together when we're in place, and ready to fight. If you can handle yourself, you can join us. Target the supplicants while we attack the Master. Run if things go wrong. I won't take it amiss if you choose to remain here, or - go back to your car, but if we go into battle, I'm the Alpha, and you will follow any orders I give you. You understand that, right?"
[Kora] Pick one target, Kora instructs Roman, her mind-voice clear over their totemic connection. You and Paul. Get as close as you can, and ambush them when I let you know we're in position. Imogen's not coming, but Izzy, the Detective, my kinswoman is. She's a decent shot. I've told her to target the supplicants while we take down the master and the dogs.
[Roman Turner] His eyes glinted dull amber in the faint light in here, one moment there then gone for a second as his head turned towards Paul and his ears rose to twitch and then flatten against his head again. That sleek head flicked towards the right before he split off to slink to the left, staying low and quiet as he got in to position and waited for Paul to place himself. Hoping the other wolf picked up on his signal.
[Izzy Montoya] Kora lays down the law, and the only reaction is when she suggests that izzy can't handle herself, in a round about way - and that only gets a lopsided smirk and a soft... "This isn't my first Rodeo."
It's as much agreement as anything else would be. She checks the safety is off on the gun in hand once more, and lifts her right leg so that her fingers can brush against the one holstered at her ankle. Then, a nod. She's ready.
[Paul Kellogg] Oh Paul caught the gesture. Slinking off to the right, hackles raised, teeth bared. He snuck around to ground his position where he'd leap into the conflict.
[Kora] "I just want to make sure it's not your last, Detective." Kora returns. She's serious enough tonight that there's no curving answer drifting across her expressive mouth to respond to the smirk, just a direct look of dark-blue eyes, drifting over the kinswoman.
Then, "Alright. Let's go." Like Roman, Kora shifts then. Both the t-shirt and thermal are dedicated, and she stripped off the hoodie, that wasn't, so her clothes shift and change with her, absorded into her flesh. She sinks all the way down to her lupus form, then picks her way through the back room, down the long hall way until she comes to the gaping hole in the plaster wall. There she shifts again, bulking up into her warform, the floorboards here are solid, built to hold the weight of thousands of pounds of groceries, heavy freezers, all of it. They hold undernearth her bulk.
[Kora] Kora: dex + stealth!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] [des+stealth - Kahseeno? please don't let Izzy trip on her own feet? ok? Ok.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Ancestors - Brawl!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[Kora] Per + Alertness - Fagan.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] She has no intention of this being her last - that much is said with another brief smirk, before she watches as her Jarl slips into a sneakier form, and follows as she changes to Crinos too. Izzy, for all her mouth and bravado, is a half decent sneak herself, and follows near soundlessly... finding and taking a position where she will have a clear shot or three.
[Roman Turner] Snap shift in mid-air to Hispo and flew at dog 1.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul shifts up into Hispo, leaping at dog 2.
[Roman Turner] Attack
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 10 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 17 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 1: SOAK!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 2: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4 (Failure at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] inits! +7!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4
[Kora] Dog 1: +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7
[Roman Turner] Init
+9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Kora] Dog 2: +6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Paul Kellogg] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Kora] Fagan: +6 in homid.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Kora] Claw-Hand +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3
[Kora] Stink Girl + 7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1
[Kora] Kora: +9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5
[Kora] Order:
Kora: 14
Roman: 12
Dog 1: 12
Izzy: 11
Paul: 9
Fagan: 9
Stink Girl: 8
Dog 2: 8
Claw-HAnd: 8
[Kora] Claw-Hand: [1. CLAW Roman.]
[Kora] Dog 2: 1. BITE Paul. Rage 1. BITE Paul.
[Kora] Stink-Girl: 1a. SPIT/HISS at Kora. 1b. RUN AWAY.
[Kora] Fagan: snapshift to Crinos! 1. Claw Kora! Rage 1: Claw Kora! Rage 2: Claw Roman!
[Paul Kellogg] 1. Bite dog Rage 1. Bite dog again
[Kora] Dog 1: 1. BITE Roman. Rage 1. BITE Roman!
[Izzy Montoya] Declare: BANG BANG BANG... and BANG! Aiming at stinky girl first, clawhand if she falls.
AKA -
1a: three round burst
1b: fire!
[Roman Turner] 1a bite claw hand
1b bite claw hand
1 r claw-claw hand
[Roman Turner] 1a bite damned dog 1
1b bite damned dog 1
1r do it again
[Kora] Kora: 1 WP - Resist Pain. 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1: BITE. Rage 2: BITE. Fagan, then moving on to whoever is standing.
[Kora] 1a. BITE -3
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5) Re-rolls: 4
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)
[Kora] Fagan - Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kora] 1b. -4
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Kora] Fagan - Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kora] Fagan: Rage Back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]
[Kora] Fagan: -.- (Incap!)
1c. Bite: Dog 2! -5
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 2: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1a bite dog
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Kora] Dog 2: Rage back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 7 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]
[Kora] Dog 2: -.- Incap!
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 1: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kora] Rage Back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
[Roman Turner] 1b bite dog
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Kora] Dog 1: x.x
[Izzy Montoya] It is one thing to know that Garou fight. It is another to see it. They move so fast, that it blurs before normal vision, blood is flying before one has the chance to breathe, and to watch is to be distracted.
Izzy is not distracted. she steadies herself into stance, takes a breath, and fires. Three rounds in rapid burst, followed by a fourth. Under her breath she counts. "17 16 15." A pause, then "14."
1a: three round burst: dex 4 + firearms 4 + 3 = 11 - 2 (split) = 9, diff 6 (rerolls)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Izzy Montoya] 1a: damage: damage 4 + 4 diff 6
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] 1b: regular shot: dex 4 + firearms 4 = 8 - 3 (split) = 5, diff 6 (rerolls)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] reroll first damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Stink-Girl!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Izzy Montoya] 1b damage! 1b: damage: damage 4 +2 diff 6
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Stink-Gir!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
[Kora] Splash-back damage from acid blood - Stink-Girl on Roman
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7, 8 (Failure at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] bite claw hand
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)
[Kora] Paul - Splash damage from Acid Blood
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)
[Kora] Kora: Splash Damage from Acid Blood!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak! Claw-Hand
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kora] Claw-Hand claws Roman!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Kora: rage 1. Claw-Hand!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2
[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)
[Kora] Claw-Hand Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Roman Turner] 1r bite claw hand!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1
[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Paul Kellogg] bite claw hand again with rage
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Paul Kellogg] damage
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)
[Kora] Claw-Hand: x.x
[Kora] A normal human being with a healthy heart in a state of moderate stress or excitement would have had 6 contractions of that powerful muscle in the time it took the battle to play out. The Garou slink through the trash that has accumulated in the den, the bits and pieces of old bodies, the array of fast-food containers and broken gatorade bottles, crushed cigarette butts, the miasmic scent in the air of animals (broken) shitting where they sleep.
Almost as one, the pair of Ragabash explode from the shadows around the mockery of a Court Fagan, the "Master" was holding with his broken ones, demanding some further tribute, some new shred of information. One takes one sleeping dog, the other takes the second, tearing them open. The animals, charged with rage and strong as Garou, will not have the chance to so much as snap teeth in response.
Sorrow charges straight across the floor, barreling into the Master, tearing him open in two-sharp bites. Blood spatters hot on the walls, soaks the barcolounger that was his throne. Rage sparks him back to life, but he does not rise again.
Izzy shoots the second of the two supplicants, twice, four rounds thudding into her body. She staggers and falls, dead, as a spray of acidic blood gouts from her veins, scoring Kora's hide. The other two have thicker skins, tonight, and are uninjured.
One by one, their opponents are put down, the dogs-that-are-not, with sharp, hinged jaws and claws like daggers, the broken human with the lobster claw. The last one is inhumanly resilient, staggering back from blow after blow that would have ended a human, even a Garou, but finally Paul seizes, and rips and his instestines come slithering out in a great, distended mass, hot and steaming on the floor.
Sorrow leaves the dog that lingers on the verge of death to Paul. She herself pads over to Fagan, Crinos now, prostrate on the floor, seizes his throat in her jaws, and rips it out.
[Paul Kellogg] Paul lopes over to the fallen dog, ripping out his throat and finishing the job. Shifting then to Crinos for the use of his thumbs. He lumbers back to the crab claw and begins twisting and turning the creatures forarm just beneath it's elbow. Eventually tearing the limb off. Wrapping it then in foul paper to carry off as a trophy should the Alpha Kora not wish it for her own.
[Izzy Montoya] Izzy does not lower her weapon, instead shifting her sights to search for a new target as they fall, one by one by one. She does not lower the weapon until after the beast that is Kora rips out the throat of King Fagan. And then, for a brief moment, her sights are on the Jarl, before she finally lowers the weapon, inch by inch, and lets her arm fall so that it hangs by her thigh, ready to reach up again.
Six seconds.
She takes a breath, holds it, and lets it out again. Only then does she holster her weapon, and turn to make her way outside for a breath of fresh air.
[Roman Turner] This place reeked of death, rot and now the sweet smell of revenge. He wanted to howl to the heavens and shook with the effort it took to hold it in. Slowly his form melted back to homid and he followed the Kin back outside to retrieve his hat while finally blows and trophy gathering took place.
"Ya done good Miss Izzy."
[Izzy Montoya] Miss Izzy. That's new. She looks over at Roman, and with less than her normal conviction and minus any and all venom, she corrects with something that's almost a smile.
"Detective."
Someone has a soft spot for southern boys - though she'd be the first to deny it.
[Roman Turner] She asked for it, just like Imogen. So as he brushed his hat off and placed it on his head, he said.
"Miss Detective Izzy, ma'am."
[Kora] There are trophies to be gathered, and corpses to clean up. Sorrow shakes her great head, wuffs softly to Paul as he takes the lobster-claw arm of the cursed man, dead now. He should take it for himself.
What follows is grim, stinking work. She harvests eyeballs from the corpses for the Hrafn, and the bones of the dead to be burned with Cigney's corpse. After the battle, she is silent, working efficiently, grimly, her eyes dry, her rage still bright inside her, in her gut, underneath her skin.
[Izzy Montoya] That gets him a huff of amusement, dangerously close to laughter. "Close enough."
[Paul Kellogg] Shifting down back into his homid form. Wrapped appendage tucked beneath his arm. A look about the place, smug with satisfaction. A glance to Kora. "I can assist with rites of cleansing....." Though an eye were given to her wounds. He'd have asked if she needed them mended...but the last time he asked a Fenrir such...he almost got struck for it.
[Roman Turner] He spent his time waiting, watching and guarding Izzy until his Alpha asked for him. Small talk, he was fair at it. And he had every intention of trying to heal Kora, even if it meant waiting till she was sleeping and denying any knowledge of it.
