It is currently 22:32 Pacific Time on Fri Jun 14 2002.

Currently the moon is in the waxing Crescent Moon phase (30% full).

Studio

The studio is airy, elegantly modern and full of light: a large,
high-ceilinged square room with almost an entire wall of windows. All the
space is crowded with canvases in storage and others in progress, rolled
works propped up in one corner, easels here and there with new canvas or
finished work. Sometimes the place has two or three pieces in various stages
of development--though usually, one large work dominates the space just
before the windows, behind the green velvet-upholstered couch (which is
quirky and curving, a work of modern art on its own). There's a colorful
Kilim rug under the coffee table--and that table is a sculpture of recycled
blue and green circuit-board and shiny aluminum. Another big canvas--this
one a darkened cityscape--hangs from the ceiling on chains rigged to
runners, similar to those for rack lighting. The work seems to block off one
area for sleeping, since a large queen-sized futon can be seen behind it.
The walls around the bed are painted with swirling color, undersea tones
predominant; they gradually grow quieter as the organic patterns grow out
into the rest of the room, and angles replace curves, until the mural morphs
into a mix of oceanscape and circuitry.

A small, compact bar and kitchenette, a stereo unit, and a plain-lined,
sparely-appointed bathroom complete the artist's workspace.

Salem raps lightly on Rina's door, two or three knocks.

The jarring screams of Linkin Park drop a bit in volume, to something a bit
more conducive to thought. A moment later Rina comes to the door, sweats
hanging low on her hips, wearing nothing else but a thin wifebeater--thin
enough to show the metal ring through one nipple, in fact. When she opens
the door she clearly is expecting... someone else. She steps back awkwardly,
and one hand rubs self-consciously at a smear of paint on the other arm,
then begins scratching it away. The skin-carving has begun to heal, thin red
lines remaining to mark the tracings of the blade. The girl's dark eyes find
somewhere else to look. "Oh. Um. Hi. Come..." She glances at something over
her shoulder, nervously? Then she's offering him one of those one-sided
wiseguy smiles. "Hey. Come in."

Salem's face is a mask of repression and self-control, but some of it slips
as Rina opens the door. He raises an eyebrow, then clears his throat. He's
carrying a box under one arm that displays the logo for Andy's Donuts. "I'm
not interrupting you, am I?"

That smile tugs upward a bit, becoming a sheepish grin as she steps aside.
"Nah. Just workin' on somethin'... a coupla things." She ducks her head,
runs a hand back through her hair. A moment later the dark eyes return to
him, intent, veiled all of a sudden. "You doin' okay?"

Salem enters the studio apartment. "I'm..." He hesitates, then lets a bit
more of the mask slip, mouth twisting into a faint grimace. "Fine. Sleeping,
in any case." He offers the donut box to her. "I, ah, wished to apologize
for my abrupt departure the other day. And for frightening you."

Rina lets out a breath, as she closes the door. "Well, that's good
anyway..." She slips the bolt, and comes up to take the donuts. "And
don'worry about it. I was just... concerned f'you." Pacing toward the
kitchen, she tosses a question back over her shoulder. "You like espresso?"

It's hard to miss the canvas; it's on the easel she's obviously been working
at, though the piece appears finished. Substantial in size, the cityscape is
not what will catch the eye. It's the likeness that looks out at him,
defiant: his own face, captured in a few deft strokes, shadowed under those
tall buildings.

A dark cityscape stretches out on a six-by-four-foot canvas, the angles
distorted so the buildings seem to loom over the single figure in the
painting. The shadows twist, forming odd shapes against grimy bricks and
stone.

A dark figure lounges against one of the tilting warehouses, saturnine face
half-shadowed, an unfastened dark-colored trenchcoat falling around his lean
body. He is rendered in near-monochrome, an urban angel Uriel with unkempt
black hair falling about his scarred features. Even with the scars he is
striking, his face composed of hard lines, his narrowed-eyed expression
somehow conveying some of the spirit of quiet defiance; this is a man at
odds with the world, a man watching those looming shadows and daring them to
do their worst.

"Certainly," says Salem, and then he notices the painting, and his likeness
within it. For a moment or two, he just looks at it, silent and bemused, a
trace of wary uncertainty flickering briefly in the lines of his face before
he pushes it away and down. "That's new," comes his comment, eventually.

Rina goes about starting up the machine on the counter, with a series of
movements that seem to come by rote. "Mmmhm." She ducks her head, her back
turned. "D'you like it?"

Salem removes his hat and shrugs out of his coat, using the time to stall
his reply. "I'm, ah, very flattered by it," he says, and that sounds
perfectly sincere. "Has John seen it?"

"Not since I finished," she answers, smiling to herself. "Hasn't been here
since yesterday." She turns swiftly, leaning back against the counter, both
hands on its edge at either side of her hips; the black eyes are bright.
"You really like it?"

Salem drapes his coat over the back of the couch and drops the hat on top of
it, considering his reply. No quick, empty answer from him, no. "Yes," he
says, at last.

Rina's smile widens to a grin, and for once she looks exactly her age,
barely more than twenty. "Good." She propels herself across the kitchen,
kinetic, unable to remain still for long. "Got somethin' else to show ya.
Prolly I'll give it to Gianni, or you..." She's heading for the gun safe by
the futon, apparently, but the girl gives him a dark glance over her
shoulder. "You good with a rifle? I forget..."

Salem's lips thin. "Not terrible. Others are better. My depth perception's
gone a bit to shit since I lost sight in the one eye."

Rina nods minutely. 'Good scope can help with that,' she murmurs, pulling
out a padded, hard-sided case from under the futon. 'C'mere...' Crouched
over the case, she unlocks it and opens it up--to reveal a choice
fifty-caliber sniping rifle, the M82A1.

Salem, curious, steps over, clasping his hands behind his back as he looms
over Rina. His eyes widen slightly at sight of the rifle, brows lifting
toward his hairline. "...And where did you get your hands on _this_ piece of
work?" he asks, perhaps a little bit admiring.

"Called in some favors," she says quietly, through a grin. Her hands run the
length of the rifle. "Crappy scope, though, I need to find a better one. And
if anything happens to this baby, *I'm* gonna end up in as many pieces, at
the bottom of a river somewhere--but don't tell Gianni that."

"Mmrmh," says Salem, turning a critical eye down on the kinswoman; he seems
to dislike the sound of that. "Noted. So... it's on loan?"

Rina nods quickly. "Yeah." She looks up over her shoulder, straightening on
her knees and grinning up at him gleefully. "Innit great?"

Salem twitches one corner of his mouth into a thin, wry little half-smile.
"It's lovely." His expression sobers, edging toward grim. "Ammunition's the
problem. I don't know about John, but _I_ certainly can't carry much silver,
and _they_, annoyingly, have the same ability to withstand normal bullets as
_we_ do."

Rina makes a sucking sound through her teeth. "Yeah, but fifty-cal's damn
good against the semi-human types. Their little pals." She rocks back onto
her heels, and flips the lid closed. "And if I thought Gianni wouldn't have
an absolute /cow/, I'd say *I* would carry it. But."

Salem eyes the long, heavy rifle, then regards Rina critically, comparing
the size and weight of the weapon versus the kinswoman's apparant strength.
"_Can_ you carry it? That thing's hardly lightweight."

Rina laughs a little, sliding it back under the bed. "Don't gotta carry it
far. Just find a convenient rooftop." She shakes her head. "Doesn't matter,
though. Gianni'd never let me... too fuckin' likely I'd get killed out
there."

"Every sniper needs a way to get out, and fast," Salem points out. "Though,
yes, the point is rather moot. It's a shame that..." He pauses. "Have you
ever heard of kami?"

"Kami?" She rises from her knees, twisting toward him as she does, seating
herself on the edge of the futon. By the frown, the term is totally
unfamiliar. "What's that?" There's an odd sound coming from the kitchen, as
the espresso machine begins its pressurized steam phase.

Salem folds his arms across his chest, one hand coming up to scratch
thoughtfully at his chin. "Gaian fomori, basically. Humans and animals
possessed by a nature spirit rather than a Bane. They're legends. No one I
know has ever met one themselves. The best is they've met someone who has
met someone who glimpsed one somewhere."

Rina's frown deepens. "Huh. Are fomori always possessed?" She leans both
elbows on her knees and props her chin on the heel of one hand.

Salem nods. "I've known Theurges who have attempted to exorcise the Wyrm
spirit. Success invariably results in the fomor's death."

Rina catches her lower lip between her teeth; she slants suddenly haunted
eyes away, to spare him the sight of things locked away in the darkness.
"Huh. Are the Dancers ever--possessed, or do they tend t'be just fuckin'
insane?"

Salem's mouth twists, baring the edge of teeth in disgust. "Possibly. It's
rare for a Garou to become fomor, but I've heard of it happening. I imagine
that the Dancers, with their worship of the Wyrm, would allow a Bane to join
with them."

Tension twists along the edge of her jaw, and she does not look at him.
"Sorry," she murmurs. "I din't mean to--"

Salem's face smooths, dropping back into a mask. "To what? Ask questions?"
The half-moon shakes his head. "No, you have a right to ask questions. To
know things."

Rina ducks her head, studying the floor. "What happened t'you--" She sounds
uncertain, hesitant. "I-- I can understand. I-- I mean if you ever wanted--
not that you would but in case y'think it'd help, I mean, I--"

Salem's eyes narrow, and as often in situations like this, his body has gone
utterly still. He's not angry, or at least there's no sense of it other than
the Rage which lurks even during his _best_ moods, but the walls are up.
And, after a moment, he says, quietly, evenly, "What do you mean?"

Crossed arms lean on her knees, her body hunched over, head
bowed--sheltering herself as best she can, a thing that seems necessary
somehow given the things she has to give in answer. "It was a few years
ago," she says quietly. "In New York. I was out dancing, and-- he tried
t'give me a ride home. Slick limo, and these two incredibly hot women with
him... I turned down the ride and then they--" A swallow tightens her
throat. "Hunted me."

Salem's jaw clenches, small muscles working under his skin. "'He'?"

Tension shifts in the line of her shoulders, and for a moment she is silent.
"Balthasar," she says quietly. "I didn't know his name until later. Until
after it was over." A careful breath, and she shudders a little, closing her
eyes tightly. "A dancer hiding in plain sight in the middle of the Walkers."
A few moments of silence pass.

Salem exhales a long, almost weary, breath, and his shoulders sag, just a
little. "Shit."

"I'd been raped before." The matter-of-fact, emotionless voice is more
shocking than the words themselves; the words so soft, coming from such a
hard place inside. "Cut, shot, beaten, stabbed--I figured there was nothin'
they could do to me that I couldn't take, see."

Salem says nothing, though his hands are closed into fists under his crossed
arms, and his eye doesn't waver from Rina.

The girl's expression is hidden, the bowed angle of her head keeping that,
at least, from his sight. "I learned," she whispers. "He taught me. Everyone
breaks."

Salem, after a moment, exhales a long, sighing breath and nods once, grimly.
"Yes," he says. "Everyone breaks." He looks away.

"So I-- understand, why it's been hard f'you," she says softly. "'Cause if--
if I heard his voice, if they said they were comin' for me, I'd a done a lot
worse than lam it for a few days." One hand comes up to rub at the back of
her neck. "I prolly woulda put a fuckin' bullet in my head."

"Sabbat would almost be _easier_," Salem murmurs, though there's a twitch at
his jaw that puts the lie to that. "The Wyrm knowing my name is not...
comfortable." He seems uneasy all of a sudden, and glances about the
apartment. "I should go," he says, turning back toward her. "Gaia forbid
they use the questing stone and track me back _here_."

Rina stands up quickly, and looks up at him; her eyes are dark, and oddly
vulnerable. As if he is merely human, and a friend, she gives him a swift,
careful hug, arms sliding around his waist, her head leaning a moment
against his chest.

Salem tenses; he holds himself stiffly for a moment, and then disengages as
gently as possible, given how tightly-wound he is. Turning away, he crosses
quickly back toward the couch, retrieving his coat and hat and slipping out
a plain business-card-sized piece of stiff paper from the former. Turning
back around, he extends this out to her, held in two fingers. "My new cell
number," he says; the mask is back in place. "John has it, and the other
members of Synthesis. And you."

Rina paces across to take it and nods minutely, watching him, her eyes
veiled again. "Watch your back," she says. Wihout another word, she lets him
out.

"You, too," the Walker replies. "Be seeing you," he adds, and then heads
back out into the night.