It is currently 22:02 Pacific Time on Fri Mar 5 2004. Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the south at 10 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.10 and rising, and the relative humidity is 86 percent. The dewpoint is 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius.) Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (97% full). Cockroach Mansion -- Downstairs The heavy, dark opulence to this mansion known as Dominion is perfectly exemplified by the room vistors first enter, this front hall. Dark-stained wood serves as paneling on the walls, gleams with high gloss in the hardwood floor, and supports a semi-circular balcony in carved pillars. The heavy double doors, made of oak, open into the hall from the south, opposite the huge, hourglass-shaped staircase composed of red and black gneiss which soars up to the balcony; both are fenced in with a wooden railing of simple spiraled posts. Several doorways can be made out on the second floor, nearly blending in discreetly with the back wall. The wall to the left of the front doors is composed entirely of windows which run from the forty-foot-tall domed dark wood ceiling to the floor; if drawn, the heavy velvet drapes of deep red would completely mask them from view, but when parted, as they often are, one has a marvelous view of the grounds outside. A doorway to the right of the front doors leads to a parlor, and towards the back are the kitchens, the large dining room, and Salem's office. Salem, dressed in work clothes -- sweats, that is, black and gray -- comes out from the back office carrying a cardboard box and heads toward the tower. The theurge is just on his way down, actually, with an empty box of Lucky Charms under his arm. "Oh- hi Salem-rhya," he greets shyly. Is...Cat wearing new clothes? [He's kinda gothy.] Salem pauses, eyebrows rising as he takes in Cat's new look, apparantly with approval, though he doesn't smile. "Ah, hello, Cat." He hefts the box. "Putting some things in storage so that Natalie can move in." He nods toward the door to the office. Cat nods solemnly, stepping out of the way so the ex-Elder can continue his way up the stairs. After a moment's hesitation, the theurge follows. "D'you need help?" he offers, hugging the empty box to his chest. Salem thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head. "This is pretty much the last. Why don't I meet you in the parlor, and you can tell me about the Rite?" Blue eyes light up, and Cat turns and practically runs down the rest of the stairs in his haste to throw out the box and be in the parlor. Heading down the stairs is Jeremy, he peers at Cat as he dashes down, offering up a quick smile. "Hey guys." He calls down, circling around the banister before hopping the last step. The theurge gives Jeremy a quick smile of his own before disappearing into the kitchen. Open, crunch, plunk. Bye bye box. Salem nods to Jeremy as he heads past and into the tower with the big cardboard box. He's gone for a bit as he adds it to the rest of the things that are going into storage rather than be taken with him when he leaves town. Most of what little he's collected in the years since the old safehouse was destroyed. "Salem, do you /have/ to go?" Jeremy asks with a quirky grin on his face as he heads over to him, glancing over to the boxes curiously. "Got anything good you are tossing out?" Cat's just in the kitchen, cleaning up- too far away to hear their conversation. Salem gives Jeremy a rather dour look, then shrugs. "Nothing being thrown out. Just put into safe keeping." He shoulders open the door into the tower and disappears inside. Jeremy watches him go, then glances over to the kitchen, calling in. "Yo Cat! Whats going on man? How ya like the clothes?" And suddenly there came a rapping, as of someone gently tapping, tapping on the mansion door! And if that doesn't work, Quentin pushes the doorbell. If there is one. Cat's in the kitchen, making himself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Mint -and- raspberry, the only way he'll eat it. "People think the shirt is weird," he tells the Kin honestly, with a rather frustrated expression on his face. "What does it mean, anyway?" "It means that Pidgeons should not eat chili, because they get really wet shits and they go crazy on your car roof." Jeremy says with a wide grin on his face. "I think you look cool dude, don't change." He heads to the door after peering up into the monitor, opening it up. "Quueeee.." "...ntin." The galliard's hand reaches through the door as it's opened, to ruffle Jeremy's hair, before with an easy grin the blue-haired young man steps inside, "You guys still hanging around this big ol' spooky place, eh?" The tower door slams shut as Salem emerges from that part of the mansion, brushing off his hands. If he's surprised to see Quentin, he doesn't show it; in truth, the Philodox seems rather preoccupied. "Not that spooky anymore. Except to the neighbors." Cat's left blinking in shock in the kitchen with a peanuty-knife in his hand. Cautiously, he pokes his head around the corner and then quirks a surprised grin. "Hi, Quentin," he calls out, then notices a glob of peanut butter on the knife and sticks it his mouth quickly. "Mm mm mimyo." Huffing at the hair ruffling, Jeremy gives Quentin a shove past him before he closes the door. "By the way, Nala says that I /am/ the King." He grins wryly, before heading into the main room. "The Ghosts kinda just gave up I guess." Quentin lifts two fingers of one hand to his brow, and away, in a salute towards the one-eyed man. "Hey, boss," he offers over with a quirked smile, "See you finally decided to go for a new haircut... I like it. Hey, Kit-Cat, how's it hanging?" At Jeremy's words, he just snorts. "Wayyyy too much info, bro." "I'm not the boss anymore," Salem says -- perhaps a bit shortly, but the moon _is_ full. His eye goes to Cat. "Parlor?" The theurge makes a face around the knife, dropping it into the sink and picking up his sandwich. "-Kit-Cat-," he repeats incredulously. "That's like calling me 'kitten', or something. It's a -girl's- name." He'd lecture Quentin more, but he's being summoned. "Coming," Cat chirps happily, trotting into the parlor with his sandwich on a plate. "Cat isn't exactly macho either. Can we start calling you Bruce Willis instead?" Jeremy says with a grin as he heads into the parlor after him. "You gotta Rite name yet?" "Yeah, well," Quentin offers with a quirk of his lips at one corner, one brow quirking, "I heard. You'll still always be 'boss' to me, boss, whatever your title is. I mean, I can't call you 'Jack' or anything..." As he strolls along after Jeremy and Cat, he quirks a brow, "Rite name? No way..." Salem shakes his head, looking mildly rueful, and mutters something about sounding like Alicia. Joining Cat in the parlor -- and it's clear that Quentin and Jeremy are invited too -- he drops into his usual armchair with a grunt and looks at Cat. "Begin whenever you're ready." Cat takes a seat on the floor, plate between his knees. But then he just looks at it like he wasn't quite sure why he wanted to eat it in the first place. "You and Signe-rhya dropped us off at the edge of the grounds," he begins slowly, fingers scratching idly where the scabs on his arm are forming. "So we went up to the fence. Emma wanted t'see if we could see anyone from where we were....we couldn't. I thought we should just set the whole place on fire, but they didn't like that idea." Jeremy settles in and listens to the story, flopping onto the floor. Salem steeples his fingers, mismatched eyes, shadowed from lack of sleep, fixing on the Theurge as he tells his tale. Quentin leans up against the wall, arms folding loosely across his chest as he falls silent as well; gaze fixing on the theurge, listening to his tale with obvious interest. The small boy is starting to look embarrassed from all the attention, but he continues talking. "We went over the wall, and then under the house, like under the porch? There were these really big dogs." Cat's hands are employed to show exactly how big these dogs were, and from the distance between palms, they were big. "Maybe fomoridogs. Emma fought the first one and I was trying to dodge the second when he bit me." His shrugs the nearly-healed arm. "It had all this frothy foam from its mouth that really burned. Th'n Josh came in, and he...tore him apart." Salem nods slightly, his expression bland. Cat describes, in often bloody detail, how Emma and Joshua fought off their enemies as he tried to keep the foam from burning him. By the time he'd recovered from the bite they had killed the dogs, and were venturing into the house. "I forget who said it...but they said they could see people," he says slowly, eyes going to his uneaten sandwich. "I think Joshua ran the door down. It was a woman and a man at the dining table. The lady stood up and invited us to eat." Here the theurge's face twists in disgust at the memory. "But she'd been -eating- the man, her husband I think. Emma went for the lady and when Josh tried to hit the man, he just exploded into bugs." "She was a fomor too, really strong. Emma couldn't knock her down. I...tried to break her skull." Cat winces slightly, hurrying on, "Then she spit up all these worms, these little wriggly things that bit all over. Emma ripped her up too, from throat to belly the same way she did the dogs. It was awful," he adds in hushed tones. "The man's insides were all on the plates and there were bugs everywhere and it smelled really, really bad." "Fomori are fond of projectile vomiting, I've found," Salem comments dryly. There's an argument, then, with Emma and Josh trying to decide which area to go to first- the basement or the second floor? They decide to go upstairs. "It seemed scary because there just wasn't anything there," Cat murmurs. His words have definitely slowed, become tense. "And then they opened a room...and he was there." A pause, a hard swallow. "M-my dad. Not -in- the room, but on the stairs. He said he was coming to get me." Salem raises an eyebrow. Quentin lifts one brow himself, lips pursing in a frown. He doesn't say anything, though, not yet. "Joshua and Emma were seeing things too, but I didn't know it then," Cat says, subdued, with his eyes cast down at his hands. "We were confused. Then I...-saw- him. And I ran." He closes his eyes tightly against the rebuke he's sure is coming. "I got so scared and Emma kept telling me nothing was there, but he really was," the boy explains hastily. "I ran downstairs because it was the only place to go. And then he disappeared. He just wasn't there anymore." No rebuke. The former elder simply listens, nodding where appropriate. Cat smiles -very- faintly. "Arrows was screaming at me. She was hopping mad that I'd let him frighten me away. She told me to go back upstairs and help Emma and Josh- I could still hear them fighting. So I went back upstairs...I think that's when I understood that we were all seeing different things. Joshua was talking about that wolf in his head, and Emma kept talking about a little girl. So I tried to get their attention. Then D...Dad came back." The smile disappears. "He said he'd hit me, beat me to death. But I didn't run, and he couldn't touch me. I could tell him everything I ever wanted to say and he couldn't touch me...because he wasn't real." Salem actually smiles a bit, the expression touched with pride. It's quickly explained, then, how Joshua and Emma began to understand that they didn't need to fight what they saw, and each began to ignore whatever images their eyes were telling them were there. The theurge's voice grows stronger again. "Then it just stopped. Everything disappeared. All that was left was this little boy under the bed." Cat's face is tilted upwards again, now that Matthew Harper's part of the story is finished; but his eyes aren't quite focused on Salem. "Emma'd raked him pretty badly, but he was still alive. He couldn't talk. Joshua wanted to kill him, but I thought he might be innocent, 'cause I remember hearing about that lady Glissa and how she ate -her- kids but they weren't fomor." Quentin's brow knits a bit, leaning forward in a bit over arms folded across his chest to listen... expression rather serious. Cat's expression is stony, remembering. "He was going to take him from me- I was holding him. But when we went to fight those gang members, he tried to kill the man I was fighting. I...didn't really forgive him for that." He clears his throat, with an uncertain glance at Salem. "I told him if he came closer I'd...kill him in his sleep. I didn't really mean it!" he adds quickly. "I...just didn't want him to kill the kid." Salem nods. "Joshua has a tendency to leap before looking. He even acknowledged it when he told me his version of the Rite. But a Theurge has to think clearly." There was a long fight, then. Should they explore the Umbra? No mirrors in the house. Was the little boy ikthya? Josh wanted to kill him immediately, Emma reluctantly agreed to wait until they had some proof, both warning that at the first sign, the boy would die. "So we went back downstairs. I'd been hearing a voice, when I was downstairs. Just a little one. Someone was calling for help. I thought it was part of the, um, hallucinations from upstairs, so I didn't say anything. But when we went back downstairs I heard it again. From the basement, so that's where we went." Cat rubs at the side of his face. "I was holding the boy, and Josh was going first and Emma was behind me. I kept trying to get him to talk." He smiles faintly, but there's no good humor behind the smile. "But he just looked back at me. He was afraid of them, but not me. I think it's 'cause he knew I thought he was..." The boy shakes his head a little. "Josh opened the door and it smelled like a garden. But not a flower garden, more like...the woods, where there's lots of dirt, right after it rains. And the voice was so much stronger, and it was absolutely dark." Salem sits up and leans forward, elbows on his knees and his eyes intent. "Emma turned on the light," Cat says softly. "We were halfway down the stairs. There was a huge...thing...in the corner, took up all the basement. It was all dirt and big worms and squiggly tentacle things. It was eating everything it could. Josh and Emma thought it was ikthya immediately, but we didn't know what to do, because it was so -big-. And it was what was talking in my head." He pauses, recollecting. "Help me. He was asking me to help him. It was...part of the Wyld. The part that eats up dead things so flowers can grow, stuff like that. I tried to tell Emma and Josh, but it was hard because the little boy..." Cat swallows, continuing slowly, "He was trying to get away from me. He was...going to eat the Wyld spirit. So I killed him," the boy ends abruptly, trying to make his expression stony and impassive, but he is a poor actor. "The Wyld spirit was really...happy. It had been trying to fight back the taint of the house, but it couldn't leave the basement. Josh gave the body to the Wyld spirit and...it ate him. He told us that the place used to be a pure place, and that it was up to us to make it that way again." Finally, blue eyes meet the black-and-milky ones. "When we went through the rest of the house, there wasn't anything else. And...you know the rest." Salem nods and sits back, his expression thoughtful. "You should see about getting someone with the Rite of Cleansing to finish the place up properly. Maybe get that person to teach you the rite." His head cocks slightly, favoring his good eye. "The boy was tainted, wasn't he. Josh mentioned that at the end, it started trying to play mind games with you three again." Cat looks back down at his uneaten (and unlikely to be eaten) sandwich. For a long time, he doesn't say anything. "Arrows was screaming the whole time," he whispers. "'Remember how -I- died. Remember how -I- let myself be fooled.' I had to break his neck to stop his screaming." There's a half-glance to the side where Jeremy and Quentin are, before he looks back at his plate. "I couldn't stop from thinking about how I used to hide under the bed too," he murmurs. "It was always the first place Dad looked." Quentin shakes his head ever so slightly, admitting quietly from where he leans, "It's just as well, honestly... if he hadn't been tainted, you would've had to make a decision as to how to protect the Veil. At least this way, the decision was easier." Pushing away from the wall, he makes his way slowly over towards the theurge, dropping down to sit on the floor beside him and nudge his shoulder with a hand, "You did good." Jeremy continues to listen quietly as he draws a knee to his chest, leaning upon it, learning. Salem stretches his legs out and crosses them at the ankles. "You faced your fears and saw through them. You were thoughtful. And you helped your rite-packmates, both Ahrouns, understand a mystery that they wouldn't have been able to solve on their own... and by so doing, you protected one of Gaia's servants. _Very_ well done, I'd say." Cat looks up, first at Quentin and then Salem, with growing surprise and a touch of shy pride. "Thanks," he mumbles, and even though the word is quiet he's absolutely glowing from the praise. "Josh and Emma helped a lot too, honest. Someday they'll be almost as good fighters as you." This, in reference to the Philodox. There's a flicker in the boy's face. "Oh, um...and Arrows wants to know if she can come out." Salem arches an eyebrow. "She's asking _permission_ now?" Quentin quirks a brow, "Arrows?" "She's been really nice lately," the theurge offers. Salem rubs his stubbled but otherwise unbearded chin. "Mm. Interesting. All right." Cat glances uncertainly at Quentin, but before the head motion is finished his eyes are focused back on Salem with an intensity in them the boy does not naturally possess. "He -nearly- got himself killed through fear and indecision," comes the harsh, cold critique. But there's a visible pause, even in the boy's face. "But he lived. I told him if he lived, he would emerge different, and so he has." Salem's eyes narrow slightly. Coolly, he says, "Different how, Arrows-of-Artemis?" Quentin's brow lifts a bit higher, his expression a bit startled as he looks between Salem and Cat with a furrowed brow. Arrow/Cat's eyes narrows as well. "You knew him too. When he doubted everything about himself, because others told him to. And then couldn't believe them when they told him -good- things." He smiles, fiercely. "But in that house, he stood there and confronted that bastard that spawned him, not only as a hallucination but as an angry man of loss. He stood up to an Ahroun who has injured him before. He has trust in himself now, and he can see into the hearts of others. He is no longer deserving of my scorn. I intervened once, and only once, on his Rite- and for that I believe my debt is paid." Salem nods. However strange this conversation seems to Quentin, it appears as though the halfmoon knows exactly what's going on. "I knew he would succeed," he says quietly. His glance shifts briefly to Quentin, including the blue-headed Galliard in that look of sudden, fierce pride, then moves back to Arrows/Cat. "Then consider it paid." Arrows' smile widens, filled with relief. "You will need to take the boy to the Umbra, and the Black Fury Elder here must call up Omesciea, the spirit that once was my totem. It is to her you must say my debt is paid, and it is she that will reverse this curse." Salem rubs his chin and nods. "Omesciea. Very well. You have my word." "A curse?" Quentin quirks a brow upwards, though he manages not to ask anything else just now. Needless to say, the galliard will be interrogating people for details later. Oh yes. Cat's smile is the same one the boy has always wore, yet somehow different. It is the one and only time anyone has ever seen Arrows smile -happily- through the Theurge's face. And then it's gone. He chews on his lower lip thoughtfully and looks from Galliard to Ahroun. "I'm a real cliath now, an' I can go to parties and everything?" he asks, with a small grin. Salem returns it faintly. "You can go to parties and even get drunk if you want." His expression turns vaguely rueful. "I'm... not good at deed-names, to be honest. Too many of them sound... pretentious. I rather _like_ 'Cat'." Quentin lets the corner of his lips twitch upwards, "You.. not good with deed-names? The devil you say..." A tip of his head, then, lets him slant a look past cerulean bangs to regard Cat thoughtfully. "Mrm. Feeds The Wyld? Weird name for a 'Walker, though." "Technically, a Kami is of Gaia, not the Wyld," says Salem. "Two different things." Cat smiles, a tad sleepily. "I'm just me," he chuckles. "Just 'Cat'." Quentin chuckles softly, pushing himself up to his feet. "Cat, Salem, Madonna, Cher... all you damn people with no proper names." He grins broadly, "Works for me." Salem snorts and gets to his feet. "_Jack_ Salem, thank you very much. Now, if you don't mind, I have a few more things to shift upstairs. Good night, you two." "Night, boss," Quentin offers with a wry smile, "Maybe we can hook up soon for you to give me the straight story on what the fuck is going on around here... since I've gotten sixteen disconnected stories." A casual salute, before he moves to slip out of the parlor. "We'll do lunch," promises the halfmoon, smiling thinly.