It is currently Sat Apr 26 2003.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is
partly sunny. The temperature is 52 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees
Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 12 mph.
The barometric pressure reading is 29.94 and rising, and the relative
humidity is 71 percent. The dewpoint is 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6
degrees Celsius.)
Currently the moon is in the waning
Crescent Moon phase (31% full).
Harbor Park -- Fountain
Situated in the center of a large,
open meadow is a clustering of six trees, a flower bed, a few
steel-and-wood benches set firmly into concrete, and a flagstone
courtyard that is dominated by a large fountain.
The fountain is a wide circular pool
of water some fifty feet across and about five feet deep in most
places. The sculpture in the center is a mix of old and new,
traditional and modern: eight concrete-and-stainless-steel slabs about
six feet high are set in a rough Stonehenge-like circle around the
center of the fountain. Water flows from their tops, cascading in
bright mesmerizing sheets to the pool below. Rising above the steel
circle is a large marble statue of the Water Bearer, an androgynous
figure draped in robes of flowing water. It bears a large jug carved
with various Greek symbols, from which pours a seething torrent of
water into the pool at its feet.
Cars on the nearby street have an
excellent view of the park as do any residents of the tall buildings
which line the waterfront.
The murky waters of the Columbia
River flow swiftly along the east side of the park. Bracketing the park
to the west is First Street and the city of St. Claire. Recent
construction work is creating an earthen berm several feet high all
along the borders of the park in all directions.
Salem
Tall and dark, he stands a few inches
over six feet, a well-built and rather dangerous-looking man somewhere
around thirty years old. A mane of thick black hair, usually gathered
into a loose ponytail that hangs nearly to the middle of his back,
frames a somber, hawkish face, the left side of which is twisted by
scars. If not for this disfigurement, he could be considered handsome
-- albeit in a dour, moody, saturnine kind of way. His face is one
designed for brooding and cynicism, and the short black beard that
lines his mouth and jaw makes him look all the more satanic. His left
eye is dead white, lost within the tangled jungle of scar tissue
covering that side of his face; his good eye, on the right, is dark
brown, not quite black. Both are shadowed, as if from lack of sleep. In
short, he has the look of the very devil about him, or of a Christ
figure gone bad.
A gray and black flannel shirt hangs
open and loose on his tall frame, revealing a plain black t-shirt
that's tucked into a pair of black jeans that are only slightly faded.
Black, too, are the heavy combat boots, which also look well broken-in.
Something hangs from a black cord around his neck but is hidden from
view underneath the t-shirt. The tails of the long black leather duster
sweep around his ankles; the coat appears new and is in excellent
condition.
Cat
He's fifteen years old, but he looks
twelve, and at times acts eight. His almost white-blond curls have
grown back curlier and more windward than ever, tendrils dangling in
his eyes and over his ears. With his small, too-thin body and big round
eyes, he looks like a child refugee, and from far away he might be
mistaken for a girl. His eyes are a brilliant blue-green shade, a shock
of color on his naturally pale face. Despite the better diet and
exercise, he hasn't lost the gauntness in his frame; but he's growing,
slowly but surely. 5' 2" now. He eats an inordinate amount for someone
his size, which probably attributes to the growth spurt.
He's wearing a
longsleeved, grey cotton overshirt over a white button-up
Catholic-school-uniform type shirt, and his usual black slacks and
mudstained Keds. He's been given a black, worn-out briefcase/backpack,
the type often seen on Japanese schoolchildren. There's a piece of red
yarn wrapped several times on his wrist, and a small, half-dollar sized
mirror strung on it. (+detail Cat's backpack).
It's a little bit late to be out, but the boy is scurrying home at a
good pace, the grocery bag in his hand. Coffee, creamer, milk, and one
single Dr. Pepper. He'd had enough change to buy that. Cat stops
outside of the park, looks around, and then heads in. It'll be a bit
longer that way, but...well, nothing quite like a nice walk!
The park's empty tonight, as much as Cat can see of it anyway, empty
but for a solitary figure smoking over by the fountain. Salem watches
the endlessly falling water, his face blank, smoke rising from the
handrolled cigarette between his fingers.
"Hm?" Cat sniffs, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting though the light
breeze. He catches sight of the Elder once he's closer to the Fountain
and slows his walk, canting his head to make sure he's got the person
right- as though Salem's hard to mistake. "Mister Salem sir?"
Salem's scarred side is toward the cub, and no -- it's hard to mistake
that map of keloid and ravaged flesh. The halfmoon looks up as his
name's called, his attention snapping back into the here and now. He
narrows his eyes a little, just for a moment. "Cat?"
Cat smiles weakly, his steps carrying him closer to the Philodox. "Good
evening Mister Salem," he greets cautiously. "I was just out for some
groceries." The bag is held up quickly, proof. "Um...how are you?"
Salem's expression reverts back to its usual studied neutrality, though
the cub, having lived with the man, might possibly note the subtle cues
of gloom around his eyes and mouth, the set of his shoulders. "Not
bad," he answers, taking a drag. "How're you doing?" His voice is flat.
"I'm okay." He looks it. He looks worlds better than that first time
Salem found him, and less nervous from their last Talk. Cat nudges the
ground with his shoe, trying to think of something to bring out Salem's
good side...where it's hiding. His head goes up with sudden
inspiration. "I did s'more drawings, and Miz Rina's painting again," he
informs the cliath cheerfully. "Y'wanna come see?"
This does, indeed, catch his interest. He hesitates a moment, then
nods. "Why not." He takes a final drag off the cigarette, then crushes
it out and flicks the butt into a nearby wastebin. "Lead on."
Cat's face lights up and skips ahead a few feet, the bag whirling about
him as he turns to look behind him at the slow, older man. "Okay!"
Salem follows the boy, hands buried in the pockets of his long black
coat. "How is she?"
Cat chatters easily the whole way to Rina's. "She's better than from
when she was sick. She sings sometimes and she took me to Easter mass."
He fishes a key out of his pocket and opens the door, padding inside
and dropping the bag on the kitchen counter. "One of the ushers said I
should ask to be an -altar boy- sometime. At school, only the seniors
could do that."
Salem lets himself be carried along by the cub's innocent cheeriness.
He even smiles a bit by the time they've arrived back at the studio.
"Are you going to try for it?"
He looks up with a very pensive expression, hands inside the bag.
"I...I'd like to." He rifles inside the bag and unloads the foodstuffs
into their proper cabinets, then takes his Dr. Pepper and hides it in
the fridge. Forbidden goodies! "But what if I have something important
to do an' it's a Sunday? I can't tell people I'm a superhero space
wolf." Cat grins a bit sheepishly. "They'd keep me in confession for a
long time."
Salem shrugs out of the heavy coat and drapes it over the back of the
couch. "You'll have to lie, of course. Say that you were sick, or that
you had to go out of town."
Cat frowns slightly, coming into the living room and searching the
shelves for his sketchbooks. "But lying's a sin," he points out mildly.
"And lots worse to lie to a priest or sister, because they talk to God.
If they find out you lied, well, see?" He nods sagely, then grins and
pulls out a familiar book, although the pages seem a bit more worn and
used than crisp and white, the way Salem bought them.
Salem settles on the couch and stretches his legs out. "I see." No,
he's not going to get into a theological debate with the boy. "Too bad
we don't have kinfolk in the priesthood here, hm?"
"I don't think they'd believe it," the boy says after a moment, handing
the sketchbook over to Salem for inspection. "Sister Helen used to say
that children had imaginations to keep 'em busy, and by the time you
got grown up, you dedicated yourself to your work, like she dedicated
herself to God. I don't know what she'd say if I she knew I was Garou."
"Mm." Salem takes the sketchbook and starts going through it, turning
pages carefully. "Back in the the day, the Church hunted our people.
Us, the vampires, the wizards and witches, and anyone associated with
them. A lot of kinfolk died."
The last drawing. There's a painting that looks like this, hanging in
some faraway cathedral, but the drawing is black and white. Cherubs
spiraling up to the clouds, which are separated by a searing white
light in the center that spills down to the earth. The clouds
surrounding that bright white spot seem to be made of thick pencil
lines, but look closely- they're tiny glyphs, written close together.
In fact...the cherubs are made of glyphs too. Everything that looks
like a curved line is glyphs. Mind you,the cherubs could be imps, too,
because they're far from perfect...
Salem squints at the picture, studying the tiny detail. Then he smiles.
It's small, but this is Mr. Salem after all. It's a sincere expression,
anyway, and if the cub's looking for approval, he's got it. "This is
good, Cat."
Cat's still looking a bit upset from the news that the beloved Catholic
church killed people. "But they...they killed vampires, right? Bad
people." The compliment further derails the cub and he blinks, then
smiles shyly. "Really? I haven't shown it to Miz Rina yet. She likes
seeing them in color, when they're all done."
"Are you planning to color it?" Salem asks, still looking at the
drawing.
He nods emphatically. "I saw these pencils in the grossry, they're like
colored pencils but then you go over them with a paintbrush and then
they're watercolor. I'm gonna ask Miz Rina if I can get them, but
later." Cat's hands fidget a bit. "I haven't really been good enough
lately, to deserve presents."
Salem grunts and closes the sketchbook, handing it back. "Forget it.
You know why Rina and I were upset, yes?"
Cat nods again, a bit more sedately as he takes back his book. "Yeah,"
he murmurs, staring at the top of the book bindings. "I could get hurt,
or get caught by a bane, and it could eat me. Or Dancers could catch
me."
"Exactly. And you wouldn't even be able to defend yourself." Salem
folds his arms across his chest and looks at the boy.
He peers back through the mess of his bangs. "I could get away," the
cub almost suggests. "I run fast. An' I have my bracelet. But it's
still wrong," he adds quickly, glancing down at his wrist.
Salem exhales a quiet breath. "Yes. It's wrong. _Don't_ do it again.
Understood?"
Cat mumbles, "Yessir," and pushes up his sleeve, starting to pick at
the knots that keep the sliver of mirror tied to him. "Is it true?" he
asks after a moment, still picking at the yarn. "About the church
killing people?"
Salem watches Cat with those guarded, somber, mismatched eyes. "It is.
The burning times. When you were in school, did you learn about the
Inquisition?"
Cat nods, biting his lip. Stupid knot. Okay, there it goes. "A lot of
Jews died, and people they thought were witches. But they thought they
were killing bad people. Couldn't the kinfolk- couldn't they." He
glances towards Rina's bedroom, even though the kinswoman is obviously
out. "Maybe sometimes people make mistakes."
"Our kin were accused of lying with beasts," Salem says quietly. "And
of devil worship. Remember, anything that wasn't part of church
doctrine was considered evil, Satanic. Including earth-worship...
_especially_ earth-worship."
That's disturbing news, from the look on Cat's face; his nose sort of
scrunches up. "But...we're not evil. We're -protecting- the world.
Christ wouldn't send us t'hell for protecting Gaia." A definite pause.
"..Would he?"
Salem sighs, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
"Cat... You should realize by now that the Christian church, like all
other human religions, is wrong about a lot of things, including the
afterlife."
Cat shakes his head. "They just don't -know-," he amends gently. "It's
not their fault they're leaving things out of the Bible. And it's
better that way. The Veil, an' all. And-" He blinks. "What about the
afterlife?"
"That it's not as simple as accepting Christ or Allah or following the
Torah and going to paradise," Salem says. "You and I... when we die,
our spirits will go to our tribe's homeland. It's a realm in the Umbra.
I've been there. Our kin sometimes end up there, too. Sometimes. But
the church's ideas of sin and salvation have nothing to do with it."
He blinks, then hesitantly smiles and shakes his head, certainty
trembling. "No. That can't be right. Everyone goes to the same place,
as long as they were good people. Maybe it's just a big place, and we
go to one part of it, but it's the same place. It's the Kingdom of
Heaven with Christ our Lord, who died so that we may live. Th-that's
the way it works."
Salem answers with a very firm, very solid, "No." His expression turns
grim, almost reluctant even, but he continues doggedly. "There is the
Umbra. The near Umbra, where we go when we step through mirrors. And
the far Umbra, where we travel away from reality and further into the
realm of spirits. There are realms that are heavenly and realms that
are hellish, but there is no one Heaven and no one Hell. There is no
God. There is the Triat and the spirits large and small. Christ was a
man. A man with power, perhaps, a man with wisdom, but not a divinity."
He's about to add more, but then his coat rings. Or, rather, the
cellphone inside it. Cursing in Serbian, he answers it.
Just crying noises, and growly groo,
and a suddenly-splatted vampire.
"There -is-!" Cat cries out, staring at Salem in disbelief and a
sneaking suspicion that he -should- believe. "He-" Then Salem's
attention is diverted and he looks down, clutching his sketchbook to
his chest.
Mel pages: Right. Mel's crying, if
he's familiar enough with it. Though it's more like hyperventilating
sobbing, trying to get breath back and not dissolve into hysterics.
Salem listens for a moment, and it's clear that whatever's going on, it
isn't good. So much for a quiet evening. "Who is this? Mel? Rina? Where
are you?" He pushes to his feet, already grabbing his coat up.
The boy is silent, and makes no move.
Mel pages: There's an unnatural,
grisly 'Snap!' noise, of bone separating from itself, and sinew or
flesh. Mel mumbling in the distance, "Oh God..."
Salem pauses in the process of struggling one-handed into his coat. His
face tightens and, more urgently, he says, "_Where_?"
Cat sneaks a glance upwards, at the on-the-go cliath.
Mel pages: The phone's obviously
being ignored. Mel's talking to someone else. Telling someone,
"Renee... she's..." and panting.
Mel pages: And Lyra's crinos voice.
~No dying.~
Salem curses in Serbian, loudly, and snaps into the phone. "Mel,
dammit, _where are you_? I'm not--" He pauses, frowning, then
continues. "--I'm not a fucking mind reader!"
The cub shifts to lupus and slinks underneath the coffee table
unhappily.
Mel pages: More thumping and movement
noises. Then the phone turns off.
"SHIT!" Salem turns the phone off with a snap and looks like he might
hurl it into a wall. Instead, after a moment's fuming, he dials.
You paged Mel with 'Ring ring.'.
You paged Mel with 'A moment or two
after you clicked off.'.
From afar, Mel giggles. There's
thinkin' with y'noggin. But she turned it /off/.
Cat whines, ears flattening. ~Something happen?~ he chuffs hesitantly.
Salem doesn't answer right away. He listens, instead, to the ringing at
the other end of the cellphone, shifting it to his other hand as he
finishes putting on the coat. There's no answer, apparantly, because he
clicks it off without speaking into it and shoves the phone into his
coat. The halfmoon's face is pale. "Yes. Fuck. Fuck fuck--" The rest is
in Serbian, a stream of verbal frustration.
Cat chuffs again. ~Is it Miz Rina?~
Salem shakes his head. "No. Another friend of mine." He stands there
for a moment, frustrated and helpless, then passes a hand across his
face and heads for the door. "I have to go. Say hello to Rina for me."
He's out the door without waiting for a reply.
There's a soft answering sigh, and Cat stays under the coffee table.
It's an hour or so before he crawls out, reverts to homid and locks the
door again.
Long distance to Mel: Salem leaves
Rina's and... well, he doesn't know, does he? I guess he'll just walk,
listen for sirens maybe, keep trying the phone...
You paged Mel with 'And, of course,
think pessimistic thoughts.'.
Mel pages: Yesss... and how her last
thoughts of him were scrambling for a phone, crying and bleeding to
death, combat all around her the likes of which she's never seen
before... which /he/ brought her into....
You paged Mel with 'Yes.'.
You paged Mel with 'Precisely.'.
Mel pages: Phone call!
It is currently 21:57 Pacific Time on Sat Apr 26 2003.
Long distance to Mel: Salem answers
before the first ring's done. "Yes?" He sounds harried.
Mel pages: Mel's voice. She sounds
fine... if a little shaken and tired. "Hey Jack. It's me." Soft,
apologetic.
Long distance to Mel: Salem | "Mel."
Relief. Very clear, very audible relief. There's a pause, and then he
asks, quietly, "Where are you?"
From afar, Mel breathes out slowly.
"Home. Renee's here. She's pretty badly hurt." There's a pause. "She
was coming around to talk, anyway, when there was this... vampire? We
had a talk. Please don't be mad."
Long distance to Mel: Salem says,
"I'm not mad." He doesn't sound it, either. Just relieved; relieved and
tired. "I'm on my way home."
From afar, Mel breathes out slowly,
hanging her head and just standing for a while. She murmurs softly,
"She saved my life, Jack. ...Come home soon," and hangs up.
Red Mill Apartments #603
This smallish, two-bedroom apartment
is somewhat sparcely furnished, but has a comfortable, homey look to
it. A greenish-gray couch holds court in the main room, accompanied by
a low, sturdy-looking coffee table. A squat black entertainment center
is set up on the other side of the room, in perfect view of the couch;
on it sits a rather large television and within the small cabinet area
underneath is a VCR. There's bookcase set up along one wall, its
shelves holding a stereo, a clock, various CDs and video tapes, but
very few actual books -- most are nonfiction paperbacks, history books.
The carpet's a neutral shade of tan and covers whatever floor doesn't
belong to the kitchen or the bathroom; the walls and ceiling are a
shade lighter and on them are a few Van Gogh prints; _Starry Night_
hangs over the couch in a position of prominence.
The kitchen's small and narrow, but
it's clean and holds the basic conveniences of modern life, including
(but not limited to) a microwave, a toaster oven, and little blue and
white dish towels. A short length of hallway past the kitchen entrance
leads to the bathroom and a pair of bedrooms.
Though the apartment is kept fairly
clean, cockroaches are a constant presence and go about unmolested by
traps, sprays, or other poisons. In fact, a small plate of fresh canned
cat food sits in a corner at the far end of the kitchen, apparantly
just for the benefit of these insects.
The key rattles in the lock, announcing Salem's arrival. The Walker
enters quickly, shutting the door behind him. The emotional mask is up,
but there are cracks in the armor; he's a little paler than usual, and
his eyes dart quickly over the room.
Mel looks up - pale and weak, herself. And probably not having moved
for the last half hour, from her spot on the couch with her head down
and hands folded behind her neck. Red-rimmed eyes watch Salem dully.
"Hey." She turns her head and tilts it up a little, towards her
bedroom. "She's in there." Looking back, Mel murmurs with a touch of
reproach, "Be /nice/."
He just looks at her for a moment, his eyes intent, his expression
unreadable. Then he nods once and moves toward the left-hand bedroom,
not even bothering to remove his coat.
Mel pries herself out of the temporary groove she's worn in the couch,
and follows him, stiffly.
Renee looks horrible and her glabro form isn't helping matters any. Her
throat and neck almost look as if someone attacked her with a chainsaw
and one gaping wound has literally ripped her throat open. The messy
tracheotomy gives those looking at her a rather unpleasent view of the
back of her throat. Atleast now the blood has dried and she no longer
gurgles like a sinking ship with each breath. Still, its almost as if
there isn't enough blood around the wound and the girl's face is
alarmingly pale. Eyes closed, Renee doesn't even register the Walker's
arrival.
"Shit," Salem murmurs, stepping over toward the bed. He pulls out his
cellphone, dials a number, and while listening to it ring, glances back
over at Mel. "Tell me what happened." His voice remains quiet.
The redhead rubs the back of her neck with one hand, the other arm
crossing over her chest as she leans in the doorway. "We were just
walking home. She'd come looking for me. To apologise. We talked. I
promised her you wouldn't kill her if she'd just come back here and
talk with you." She sighs softly. "I was gonna hide her in my room til
I'd prepped you a bit. So you'd be more reasonable, see all the sides,
calm down. Not take it so personally, and reach an understanding... But
on the way, there was a vampire, biting this woman. Renee went in, and
it... got her. And then it went after me, when I tried to chase it off
her. And..." The redhead pauses, as if not quite believing this bit.
"And /Lyra/ came and changed, and.. and..." She shakes her head,
shutting up, now.
Salem clicks off the phone. No answer, apparantly. He nods, his
expression still quite blank, and looks down at the wounded Bone Gnawer
again. "How long as she been like this?" He takes Renee's arm,
surprisingly gently, and feels the inside of her wrist for a pulse.
Mel shakes her head a little again. "It was... tearing out her throat.
Sucking on her blood or something. And then it..." She shudders. "She
was half-dead, but she grabbed its legs as it tried to get me. We
walked the rest of the way home. I helped."
Renee's pulse is there, if weak. At the touch, she grimaces.
Salem puts her hand back down on the bed and straightens up. "That's
the third attack. Fuck." He passes a hand back across his head,
brushing back a stray lock of hair. "Do me a favor, Mel?" He starts
removing his coat, his eyes still on the battered Galliard. "Put this
away and make some coffee. Please." The 'please' is added almost as an
afterthought; his voice remains soft and deadened.
Mel simply obeys quietly, glad for something to do.
Long distance to Renee: Salem assumes
she's struggling for breath, or it sounds thin and reedy, or?
Renee pages: You can actually breath
though a throat wound. The real problem come from breathing stuff
directly into your lungs. :) She is breathing fairly shallow and there
is a fair bit of whistling involved. :)
You paged Renee with 'Ah hah. You
smart medical people. :) OK.'.
Salem, meanwhile, pushes his hands into the pockets of his jeans and
stands by the bed, looking down at Renee and listening to her breathe.
Renee's eyes open a crack and a swollen tongue runs over dry lips.
Brown eyes eventually focus on Salem and show a breif flash of fear,
that is hard to miss.
Elsewhere, coffee starts brewing.
Salem's mouth thins, muscles in his jaw tightening. But all he says is
a simple, "Thank you." Then, his expression growing blank again, he
asks her, "Raul. He a healer, by any chance?"
Renee opens her mouth full of pointed teeth, then closes it and
swallows carefully. 'I don't know,' she admits to the Walker mentally,
calling on the aide of her gift.
Salem's face does a tensing little twitch, jaws clenching. He shakes
his head. "I'll keep trying to reach Alicia, then. Meanwhile, rest."
Renee takes in a deeper breath, air whistling as it rushes in though
the hole in her throat. 'Raul is usually at the church, if you wanted
to look for him.' The young woman's eyebrows scrunch together.
The bedroom on the left is a cosy
little room that somehow assaults the senses with a seeming
kaleidoscope of images. Photographs and posters, of varying sizes,
pasted all over the walls create an odd effect - they've been arranged
by colours, creating a belt of warm to cool. Individual photos are
largely of landscapes, sometimes people. There's plenty of black and
white interspersed... and they're taken at angles and with compositions
that suggest an artistic mind, rather than holiday or memento snaps.
Far less striking is the rather small
single bed with black sheets, and nondescript wooden desk next to it,
with lamps, and a cluster of sketchpads and various writing/drawing
implements. A chair almost creaks under the weight of various pieces of
clothing that hide it, and there are small piles of clothes arranged in
some kind of order. The scent of perfume in the room, plus the nature
of the clothes (including occasional lacy or frilly things) suggests
that a female lives here.
"Of course he is." To Mel, it must sound a little odd, the one-sided
conversation. The cellphone's in his coat, which she took away and hung
up. Salem glances around the bedroom, then moves the pile of clothes
off the desk chair and sits, facing the bed. He stretches his legs out,
arms folding across his chest.
Mel is conspicuously absent. Various preparation things are probably
happening in the kitchen. Probably.
'My daughter is going to need me,' is the last thing the Half-Moon
hears from Renee, before she closes her eyes and tries too sleep.
Salem makes an 'mm' noise. He eyes Renee and, seeing her lapsing into
sleep, refrains from further questions. He rubs his chin, fingernails
scratching absently at the short black beard, and then sighs.
Mel returns with coffee. One cup. Holy throats are not good receptacles
for coffee.
Salem glances up and accepts it with a nod and a murmured, "Thanks." He
takes a sip, then gazes into the cup. "You can use my bed, if you wish.
I'm going to stay up." He glances over toward the girl on the bed.
"It wasn't as big a thing as you thought. She was just exaggerating,"
Mel murmurs, folding her arms and watching Renee. "Really only one
person complaining, she said. One just curious about the fuss from
them."
It takes Jack a moment to make the connection. He glances up at Mel,
frowning remotely. "Did she say who?"
Mel lifts one hand only briefly to rub at the bridge of her nose. "It's
a point of honour. She thought maybe she could take some time to find
some way of satisfying you without betraying whoever confided in her.
You wouldn't ask her to do that, would you, Jack?" Green eyes slide
sideways to watch the man.
Salem compresses his lips. "Just one, hm? I have some inkling." Then he
shakes his head and takes another sip of coffee. "Nevermind. It's not
important." He sounds weary, but looks miles away from sleep.
"No. Not really," the Kin agrees, arms folded and gaze returning to the
Gnawer. Quiet. Pensive.
The silence drags on for a bit. Salem sips coffee, then murmurs, "I'm
sorry." His gaze is within the cup again.
Mel stands there motionlessly for a while longer, before turning,
patting the man's arm softly, and reaching down to peck him lightly on
the cheek. She slips out of the room.
Salem, after another sip of coffee, gets up and retrieves his
cellphone. He dials Alicia's number as he walks back.
Alicia pages: After a few rings,
there is a hurried. "Yo. Lisha'. Whats up?"
Salem drops back into the chair by the bed. "Alicia. It's Jack." He
sounds tired, numb. "Third leech attack. Renee needs a healer. My
place."
Alicia pages: Third? There was a
first an second? What the hell dude. Geezus H Christ. Fucking Hanford
bullshit." The voice gets softer for a moment, followed by a grunt,
then a thud. "Aiight, got my damn jacket on, see ya in ten." *Click*
Salem clicks off the cellphone and leans back, eyes closed, to wait for
his packmate's knock.
Ten minutes on the dot, there is a knocking on the door.
Salem's eyes snap open, and he hauls himself to his feet and answers
the door; the Child of Gaia is greeted by a particularly somber-looking
Walker Philodox who gestures toward the left-hand bedroom -- Mel's
bedroom. "Renee's in there. Alive... just. See what you can do." He
sounds just like he did on the phone.
Alicia reaches out and pulls him into a big strong care bear hug, then
pats him on the stomach. "You need sleep. I'll gather up Chop-Sticks an
we'll do a patrol on the streets. See what we can rustle up in the way
of news. You ganna fill me in on the morning?" She asks, making her way
past him towards the desired room.
Renee looks horrible and her glabro form isn't helping matters any. Her
throat and neck almost look as if someone attacked her with a chainsaw
and one gaping wound has literally ripped her throat open. The messy
tracheotomy gives those looking at her a rather unpleasent view of the
back of her throat. Atleast now the blood has dried and she no longer
gurgles like a sinking ship with each breath. Still, its almost as if
there isn't enough blood around the wound and the girl's face is
alarmingly pale.
"Holyfuckingshit. You said heal her, not preform a frigg'n miracle."
Alicia says, nose wrinkling at the sight.
Salem grunts, accepting the hug with the air of being too tired to
protest and follows her toward the bedroom. "Yes." He gives her a
moment to survey the damage, then says, flatly, "Do what you can. Her
body'll take care of the rest. Get her on her feet, at least. She has a
child, after all."
"Man. If I pull this off, I want some major asskissing." Alicia sinks
down to her knees and tries to attack this at a good angle. Furrowing
her brows, she reaches out with her hands, carefully sliding them
around Renee's throat, then begins to heal her with the touch of Gaia's
blessings.
Salem watches from the doorway, coffee cup in hand. He doesn't drink
from it.
Well, when Alicia heals, she /heals/. Putting forth all her effort and
concentration, it seems that this Gaian is blessed tonight. She puts
her 'mph' into it.
The wounds on Renee's neck almost seem to crawl and squirm on their
own. Ragged edges pull together and the Galliard's skin smooths, as her
breathing becomes easier.
Salem exhales a breath and swallows some coffee. "Excellent," he
murmurs.
"Ooooh. I am the /man/." Alicia states, blowing on her fingers, as if
they were gun barrels. Stepping back from the Gnawer, she glances over
to Salem with a wide grin.
"You are," Salem says dryly, "a paragon of healers." He glances toward
the bed, then moves away, back out to the living room. "Let her sleep.
You know where she's keeping the puppy, right?"
Alicia shrugs her shoulders. "Um.. No..." She says softly. "I bet Ebony
does tho'. May wanna check with him. I know she had it in that one
apartment, but who knows.. could be at the church, junk yard, blah."
Salem rubs his eyes. "Check the apartment. The pup will probably be
fine for one night by itself, but could do with some checking on, I
imagine."
Alicia waves some and starts out the door, yawning. "I will. I'll make
sure the Ewok doesn't run around naked or anything outside. Take care
guys."
Salem sees her out. "Good night, Alicia. And thank you."