It is currently 20:08 Pacific Time on Sat Apr 23 2005. Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (100% full). You paged the room with 'Ahem. Out into the common area, Getboy. :)'. Currently in Saint Claire, it is mostly cloudy. The temperature is 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the east at 3 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.17 and steady, and the relative humidity is 86 percent. The dewpoint is 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius.) Safehouse: Common Area The foyer of this house is set off from the living room with its octagonal bump-out by a four foot high halfwall. Stairs lead up from the foyer, turning and disappearing to the right, and a steel door with a keycard lock claims the wall opposite the living room. The rest of the main floor is taken up by a small bathroom across the hallway from a dining room which is separated from the kitchen at the back of the house by another half-wall. The decor is decidedly sparse - white walls, beige carpeting in the living and dining rooms and down the hall, unremarkable vinyl in the foyer and kitchen. A used couch and a pair of recliners are grouped around a coffee table in the living room, with a foursome of wooden chairs claiming the bump out for quieter conversation. The dining room boasts a white laminate table with four aluminum and vinyl-upholstered chairs - too new to be 'vintage', too old to be trendy. The appliances and cupboards in the kitchen are new - or at least refurbished to look like it - and a door leads out to the backyard from there. Up the stairs are a number of empty rooms where anyone affiliated with the Sept can crash and an office for private meetings. The Glass Walkers have their own area accessible via a locked door off the foyer. The main doors themselves lead back out to the front porch of the house. Thumpity Thump Thump Thump Thump. Brom bangs on the door, none too quickly, or gently. He stands in wait, tall as a statue as he shifts his shoulders about. Cy pages: Okay, so uh... what's the policy? Cy gets invited to follow him into the common area to answer the door or something? Maybe they're in mid-lesson? You paged Cy with 'Hmm, yeah. Middle of another Mother's Tongue lesson -- getting harder without her shifting, at least to speak it --- and he doesn't say anything when she follows him to the common area. Tacit approval.'. Grey, his lesson with Cy interrupted, frowns tightly as he stalks into the common area of the house and to the front door. Brom is greeted with the sight of a dour, unsmiling Glass Walker Philodox and a flatly polite, "Good evening." "Hey, you got five minutes to talk? I'd call, but I don't have a number so I walked all the way here." Brom says as he shifts his shoulders to loosen them up. [Brom] Standing tall about six foot five, Brom has the body of a brick wall. He obviously works out on an obsessive basis. His arms are thick and his chest broad, giving off the look of perhaps a well in shape football player. He has a pair of intense blue eyes that always seem to border on anger, and a well developed scowl. Brom has long hair to about his shoulders, a dirty dark blonde that is typically tied up into a tight pony tail, pulled back from his head. He has a jagged looking scar along his neck that dips down into his shirt, and a few more along his arms that appear to have been made by claw marks. He tends to dress very plainly, a pair of beat up blue jeans with slashes and holes in them, a tight fitted black muscle shirt and a beat up looking leather jacket. Shit kicker boots adorn his feet and a large belt buckle with the picture of an axe on it. http://homepage.mac.com/jasonaisling/brom.jpg // Best reference I could find for him, for White Bear's relief, no, he doesn't wax his chest, he's manly and probably has hair. Also, he wouldn't have much of a beard, perhaps a scruff on his chin and not as old. Brom is in his early 20's. Grey has a close rein on his temper, and his reply is courteous enough, even deferent. "I have some time, yes." He steps aside to let the bigger man -- literally, Brom towers a few inches over Grey and is much more massively muscled -- inside. Stepping inside, Brom clears his throat. "I will make this quick and to the point. I have more information regarding that farmhouse that we found tainted. That is if you are still interested in helping out. I was told that you were pretty handy when it comes to getting shit done." In the doorway that connects the common area to the Walker's side of the house, a bright-haired girl loiters silently. She eyes the enormous new arrival without a word, one skinny shoulder shoved up against the doorframe. Both hands are buried in her pockets. Grey clasps his hands behind his back. "It's been known," he says blandly. "What's been found out?" He glances sidelong at the girl, then looks back at Brom. Cy is not shoo'd away. "Fomori human was feeding animals some stuff, green goop." Brom begins. "Well, he tried to feed it to his pet bull and that didn't go well. The bull killed the human. Now it seems that the bull runs the farm, in an intelligent, organized fashion. There is also one cow, about a dozen birds and who knows what else in that green house." Grey's eyebrows lift, one higher than the other. "How was /this/ found out?" The girl in the doorway blinks. Twice. Her regard focuses a little more sharply on the huge man. "Got information back from the Gnawers. We've been working together with a Corax by the name of Val. She's been speaking to the spirits in the Umbra, which by the way is about a few weeks away from becoming a full blown out fucking blight." Brom says with a frown upon his face. "The animals gather at sun down to 'worship' this Bull, who seems to be the King of the castle. So in my opinion, we kill the Bull, we create disorder among the ranks. So.. you got a sniper rifle? I'm not going to put 'killed by a cow' on my tombstone." "Fomori cow," Grey murmurs. He doesn't crack a hint of a smile and seems -- perhaps to Cy's amazement -- to be taking this with complete seriousness. "I can probably get my hands on one, depending on how short the notice is." Brom nods his head sharply, brows knitting. "That would be excellent." He speaks, his tone just as seriously. "I am not one to approve of using tools to get my job done, but I've fought these things three times now, and each time something new happens. I went blind once, went paralyzed, and even passed out by just meager bites. I really don't know what a cow can do." He lets out a slow breath, then says. "That is all. If you can spread that information to Natalie as well, I would be grateful. I am gathering the assault team now and we are preparing, soon as the scouting party comes back with something concrete. I have a plan in the works, I just want to know what we are 'fully' up against before we get killed by farm animals." The slight young girl frowns at the two men, both arms crossing over her chest. She's content to ghost in the background, though her expression darkens with every word she overhears. Grey cocks his head slightly, then nods once. "I'll pass the word." Brom dips his head slightly. "Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your full moon." He tilts his head a bit past the Walker towards the cub, then heads back out, pulling his leather jacket tighter about him. Grey sees Brom out, lingering briefly at the open door to watch the Get walk off, then closes the door, locks it, and turns around to raise an eyebrow at Cy. In the wake of the departing giant, the girl's frown deepens a few more notches. She switches her gaze from the closed door to the one man left. "...Killer cows?" Her tone is dry and flatly, utterly incredulous. Grey shrugs. "Ever read _Animal Farm_?" He starts back toward the Glass Walker side of the house -- and the girl in the doorway. "The Wyrm sometimes corrupts a human or animal enough that they mutate." Cy backs out of his way quickly with a tense scowl, retreating back into the more familiar half of the house. Once at a safe distance of a few feet, she shakes her head. "_Sniper rifles_?" Again, that flatly disbelieving tone. Brain does not compute, apparently. Grey squints at her a little. "Sniper rifles are stranger than evil intelligent cows?" She shoves both hands back into her pockets, glaring at her bare toes where they emerge from the too-baggy jeans. "You people are _insane_," she mutters, wrinkling her nose. Grey's expression darkens. "Lesson's over for the evening, I think." As is his patience, it seems. Cy opens her mouth is if to retort, but then quickly snaps her jaws shut again. "Fine," she grunts lowly, moving past him to stomp up the stairs--but giving the older Philodox a wide berth, at all times. Moments later, the upstairs bunkroom door slams sharply. Grey, scowling, retreats into the living room to glower at the television, watching it without seeing it. Eventually, he gives up and retires to his bedroom. Hours pass. The house goes quiet and dark as its inhabitants settle in for the night. Around one in the morning, Cy ghosts her way out of the bunkroom--being careful not to wake Kevin, though the Ragabash cub sleeps like the dead--and makes her way along the hallway, down the stairs. She's careful to avoid any of the squeaking steps. Something small and multi-legged scuttles from one shadow to the next and disappears into the computer room. It's the only thing a-stirring, apart from the cub herself. Alert and tightly-wound on a moon such as this, the girl freezes momentarily at the tiny movement in her peripheral vision. Once the threat is identified, she relaxes slightly and continues her soft-footed path to the door leading to the other side of the house. She tests the doorhandle gingerly, for fear of clicking bolts or unoiled hinges. The exit from the Glass Walker area is a heavy wooden door. In the wall beside the door, an electronics system has been set up with a small screen showing video monitoring of the hallway just past the door and an intercom speaker connected to the one on the other side. That's the thing about Glass Walkers. They take /care/ of their technology. Opening the door out isn't perfectly silent, and every click, every tiny noise, seems amplified in the stillness. But no alarms sound, and nobody comes pounding down the stairs to catch her. The common area is open. And beyond it, the front door. Cy's holding her breath now, every tiny hair and nerve standing on-end as she steps into the common area, scanning what she can see of the room in the moonlight filtering through the windows. Seeing the coast is clear, she runs her hands along the edge of the front door and examines the locks; this portal is less familiar to her than the one leading from the Walkers' private area. They're good locks. But, like most locks on houses, they're meant for keeping people out, not keeping people in. The cub doesn't release the air in her lungs until she's disengaged every lock, and cracked the door open to slip outside. She pulls the door shut behind herself with utmost care, easing it until she hears the bolt slide back into place. Shrugging up the hood of a sweatshirt nabbed from the bunkroom, she takes a brief moment to scan her surroundings. Still no alarm, no sign of discovery. Behind her is the stately old Victorian house. Under her feet -- stuffed into multiple socks due to the lack of properly-sized shoes -- is the porch; there's an ashtray sitting on the railing. Before her is a lawn only just starting to come back to life, well cared-for shrubbery, and beyond /that/... the street, and a number of other stately old homes. Her breath fogs damply in the cold night air as she moves out onto the lawn--then pauses in a moon-cast shadow, casting a glance up towards the second-story windows of the Victorian building. Darkness still. Even psychos with creepy dead eyes need their sleep sometime, though if she's paid attention, Cy'd know that Grey, unlike Kevin, sleeps lightly, and there's no telling when he might wake up, go downstairs for a drink of water, check on the status of sleeping cublets... The sight of dark windows was exactly what she was looking for. Springing into action, she scampers off the lawn and onto the sidewalk, around the corner as fast--and silently--as she can. Stocking feet don't make much sound on impact, after all. She doesn't slow her trot until she hits the first cross-street with a sign. The cherry-haired girl is probably unsurprised to find out that she's uptown, where the upper-middle class folks live. All the streetlights work, and the vehicles that aren't tucked away snugly into garages are new and sleek with their lack of broken windows or random dents. Nearly all the windows in the houses -- and, later, the low, nice-looking brick apartment buildings -- are dark. There's no graffiti. Kid's toys have been left out on a few lawns. Some careless boy's left his dirt bike out, carelessly. A glance is thrown back over her shoulder every so often, and she does her best to avoid the pooling light of streetlamps. She zeroes in on the bike immediately, glancing once at the house it belongs to before taking up the 'cycle off the lawn and mounting with practiced ease. Once on wheels, she launches due south, pedalling furiously. Freedom! And if she's lucky, the crazies won't discover her absense for several hours. Freedom and /wheels/. Cy rides like a wild thing, though the bike's a bit smaller than she's used to. Dodging early-morning traffic and darting along side-streets, the girl maneuvers her way effortlessly through the familiar grid of St. Claire--heading south, then west. She doesn't begin to slow her pedalling until she enters the most run-down part of town, where most storefronts are boarded shut and empty houses gape with broken windows. The /real/ St. Claire, this is. Not the yuppies in their fancy houses or the corporate drones in their shiny offices. The streets are still awake, are /always/ awake. Eyes watch the shoeless, skinny kid with the too-big clothes bike by, some disinterested, some glazed, some wary, some downright suspicious. As she reaches a familiar neighborhood, Cy spots a familiar face, a bony, horsefaced girl with stringy blonde hair underneath a dirty black knit cap. She's squatting in a doorway, sharing a cigarette with a teenage boy whose face is a moonscape of acne. The speed of the ride and the fat of the moon lend a fera glee to the cub, and she bares her teeth to the wind as she races along the streets of her familiar haunt. Once catching sight of the pair, she swerves sharply onto the sidewalk and leaps off the small bike without even braking, letting the stolen transportation fall by the wayside. "Fuckin' A, /Max/," she addresses the girl, hair and breath both haggard from the ride. "Am I fuckin' glad t'see /you/." Max looks up quickly, blinks at Cy, but her welcoming smile, usually quick and ready and full of crooked, protruding teeth, withers as Cy approaches. "Uh," she says, hesitantly. "Hey, Cy. S'up?" The boy with her -- Dog, he calls himself, sixteen and newly arrived from somewhere not far from the radioactive shithole that used to be Hanford -- just stares at Cy, open-mouthed, his brown eyes wide. Cy sidesteps a patch of broken glass in her stocking feet as she walks up to the pair, chest still heaving from exertion. "/Fuck/, y'guys--you're never gonna /believe/ where I've been..." Still buzzing from her fast-paced escape, she pauses to shove back the sweatshirt's hood and shake out her sweaty red hair in a rather canine fashion. "/Fuck/." Max shoots eyes sideways toward Dog, then reaches over and catches hold of his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Ohyeah?" she says, eyes twitching back to Cy. "Kel said th'cops got'cha." Her voice is all wary. Dog's mouth snaps shut. He looks down, then up again, and keeps hold of Max's hand. The red-haired girl bares her teeth in a dark, adrenaline-laced grin. "That's what /I/ thought until they--" Cy cuts off abruptly, brows lowering heavily as she looks between the two of them. "The fuck's wrong?" From afar, Cy notes she's about... two feet away from them. Both the other teens are visibly nervous, their linked hands tight. Dog's eyes keep twitching everywhere as though looking for escape. Max, somewhat braver, keeps talking, but not after licking her chapped lips and giving a tense little shrug. "I d'no, y'just... Hey, if y'lookin' f'Kel, he's prob'bly under the bridge. It's Penny's birthday, y'know?" Cy's frown deepens into a scowl at the girl's noncommittal answer, and she shakes one leg out in an absent, restless way. "Gimme one'a those, wouldja?" She jerks her chin towards the cigarette, eyes lighting briefly on Dog. Dog makes a whimpery noise not unlike that of his namesake, and leans back against dirty brick. Max frowns, puffing up the way she does when she's feeling protective. She did that for Cy, once, even, when a couple of the guys were giving her some shit. "Leave'm alone, Cy. We only got th'one." There's a flash of teeth and an actual _snarl_ from the red-haired girl, showing that dark gap where one of her incisors should be. "What. The Fuck. Is WRONG with you." She's pinning her once-friend with that dark, narrow-eyed gaze now, taking a heavy step towards the pair. Bristling visibly. Max's bravado dies a quick and gory death. Wordlessly, she and Dog cringe back in the doorway, trying to get as far from Cy as possible, looking /trapped/ by the short, skinny girl. Dog's face has gone as white as the knuckles of their tightly clasped hands. "/Max/." The word is half-spoken, half-barked, as the scrawny cub stalks yet another pace towards them--actually looming, despite her size. "/Talk/ t'me." Cy's own knuckles are pale with fury, both hands knotted into fists at her sides. There's an open threat in her eyes now, which have widened to show deadly rims of white. Dog closes his eyes and whimpers again, as though Cy had pulled out a gun and pointed it at his forehead. The cigarette's long since fallen from nerveless fingers. Max swallows hard, her eyes wide as headlights, like a rabbit gone stupid with fear. "Tuh... tuh-told you, Cy," she manages. "Kel's over by the, the bridge. Okay? Just l-leave us alone, okay?" Caught somewhere between bewilderment and pure, seething anger, the red-haired urchin yanks away from the pair with a growl and an audible snap of teeth. She stalks back to where she dropped the bike on the sidewalk, re-mounting with a daggerlike stare in the direction of her supposed friends. With that, she pushes off and pedals towards the bridge--riding kamikaze through the streets now, fueled by some strange fire. Under the bridge downtown, just like the song. As she approaches the spot -- the very spot, in fact, where Grey and Natalie stole her away from a life that made /sense/ -- she can hear the sounds of celebration. There's beer and cigarettes and the acrid tang of marijuana smoke. Someone's lit a small fire. Laughter and conversation. Cy hops off her bike for the second time tonight, stowing it in those same bushes that Natalie once hid behind. Rounding the corner of the shrubbery, she rakes a small hand back through her hair and scans the gathering with a dark gleam in her eye. All the usual faces, plus one or two new ones, and it seems like nothing has changed in their lives since the night she was kidnapped. Kel, nineteen, a grubby Adonis whose natural good looks are rather ruined by a broken nose and the fact that he's missing his upper four front teeth, has his arm around Penny, who's in the middle of a fit of giggles. Penny's sweet and easily likeable, but dim. Everyone's there, it seems, and everyone's happy... but conversation stills as Cy shows up, little by little, starting with the people closest to her. Cy blinks once, twice, and curls her lip as she steps into the quickly-hushed gathering. A bewildered look is thrown towards Kel from across the group, and she mutters, "Who died?" Kel, out of all of them it seems, doesn't look afraid of her, but neither is he insensitive to the effect Cy has on his friends. "Hey, Cy. Long time, no see." He speaks easily enough, but there's a certain bewilderment in his eyes, and it makes him irritable. "Max said I should come find you," Cy murmurs, with a puzzled look towards those of her friends who avert their eyes. She steps closer to the older boy, skirting the edge of the fire, and frowns at him. "W's goin' on around here?" Penny curls close to Kel, putting her curly-haired head against his chest. Must be spring, the way everyone's pairing up. "S'Penny's birthday," Kel answers with a tight-lipped grin. His black hair falls fetchingly over one eye in a way that most have to /work/ at to make happen. "Wha's goin' on wi'choo, huh? You get outta juvie?" Cy's expression etches deeper as she looks at the pair of them, and shakes her head. "Wasn't pigs, man," she mutters hoarsely, pitched for his ears only. "It was--I was kidnapped." She twitches a glance back over her shoulder, but she's only rewarded with the frightened stares of a few other punks. From afar, Cy also decides that Kel with his mighty WP 4 is an old crush of Cy's. Yes. Ow. :> Stares... and avoided stares, eyes twitching away from her when she looks their way. Whispers, mutters, all the frivolity and cheer gone from the gathering. Penny's lower lip quivers. "Ki'napped, huh?" Kel looks bemusedly at Cy. "Man, tha' sucks." He looks away from her, hazel eyes skimming over 'his' people, noting their unease with more bewilderment and a furrowed brow. Cy follows the trajectory of his gaze with her own, before coming back to look at the older boy. Flatly ignoring Penny, now. "Kel--wh'the fuck's wrong with everyone?" Her irritation is beginning to mount, along with her confusion. A fist clenches at her side, involuntarily. "'S not like I fuckin' died or anything." Kel shrugs. "D'no. Seem th'same t'me." He smirks. "'Cept you, like, 'r dressed like a retard." A thin chorus of nervous laughter greets this witticism; Penny's giggle is a little too shrill. That witticism earns the older--and larger--boy a glare that could melt glass. Not to mention a small, well-aimed fist hurtling down towards his face with an animalistic snarl. Penny squeals like a terrified piglet and clings to Kel, who's been in his share of fist-fights but is hampered by the birthday girl. Still, he manages to duck enough that Cy skim-boxes his ear rather than re-break his nose, and he /almost/ manages to grab the cherry-head's arm. Cy follows through the punch with her full weight, throwing herself onto the boy--Penny be damned--with a snarl full of teeth and spittle, aiming a bite at the side of his face as she tries to grab hold of his t-shirt with both hands. Shouts of protest and fearful anger; people getting up. Penny shrieks and starts scrambling away as Cy leaps at Kel, who loses all trace of amiability as he surges up to meet the angry girl's lunge. As Cy grabs Kel's shirt, his fist slams into her face. Cy sees stars. Then she sees nothing but red. The next thing the cub knows, everyone's gone. The fire's still burning, the smells of beer is strong, the scent of cigarettes and marijuana linger. But mostly there's blood. Blood in her mouth. Blood on her hands. Blood on her clothes -- the sweatshirt and socks are in tatters. Blood all over the ground. Blood on the torn, shredded bodies of Kel and Penny. Cy crouches, wide-eyed and panting, by the edge of the fire. She stares uncomprehendingly at her surroundings, blinking sticky warm liquid from her eyes. Licking her lips at the unfamiliar taste in her mouth, she looks down at the wreckage of flesh that used to be two members of her chosen family. Blinking once, she falls back out of her crouch, landing on skinny haunches. Kel's hazel eyes -- he had such beautiful eyes, eyes you could get lost in -- stare sightlessly upward. The lower half of his face is simply /gone/. His belly's been torn open, his ribs smashed. The smell is awful. Penny lies on her belly, her left leg half-off, just under the hip, and she smells like urine and shit let go in a spasm of terror. The only thing keeping her head to her body is a strip of flesh at the front. She stares at the firelit carnage for a long, long time, nostrils flaring with every intake of breath. Her gaze stutters down to her hands, and the blood congealing there. Then, very deliberately--slowly, as though afraid to rouse the dead--the cub rolls over onto hands and knees and retches all over the concrete, spewing any remains of her most recent meal. Her now-emptied belly twists and tightens, as the last remnants of sick drool in thick, ropy strands from her mouth. Dim and distant, it seems, the sounds of traffic rumbling overhead, over the bridge. Behind her, footsteps soft and measured, pausing once, briefly, before coming closer. Cy coughs harshly, spitting bile. Upon hearing footsteps, she tenses and turns, rising into a three-point crouch. Eyes wild, face warpainted black. It's Grey, his body rigid with controlled tension, his jaw tight. Rage coils around him like smoke, but his gaze is almost... sympathetic. In one hand, he dangles a smooth stone from a length of thin silvery string. The stone sways subtly, swinging toward Cy and back. Her gaze is blank, for an instant--nothing but one animal appraising another animal. Something like a grin stretches across her young features, baring teeth still dark with blood. Then she blinks, and her crouch collapses into a seated fetal ball, knees clutched up against her chest. She stares at the man beseechingly, rocking slightly to and fro. Grey yanks the stone up into his hand with a tug, then slips it into a pocket of his jeans. Shrugging out of the long grey trenchcoat, he steps forward, kneels down, and drapes the coat over the cub's shoulders. Out of another pocket comes a packet of wet-naps, which he holds out toward her. "You need to clean your face and hands." His voice is quiet but authoritive. She's on autopilot, now, as she moves mechanically to clean her face and hands. Very studiously _not_ looking at remains of Kel and Penny, or the shade of red that shows on the white napkins. Hunching her shoulders, she clutches the trench-coat around herself and climbs to her feet. Offering out the soiled napkins in a crumpled mass, with one shaking hand. Her expression is hollow, and she won't look him in the eye. While Cy cleans herself up, Grey takes in the scene with the calculating air of a professional, his nostrils flaring. He turns back to the cub when the used napkins are offered and takes them. "My car's near," he says, speaking in a calm, low voice. "I'm going to go to it and get a few things, then come back here. The bodies need to disappear. You understand why?" The girl stands there and nods mutely, eyes still glazed. Though her face and hands are comparitively cleaner, her hair's still matted with blood. She grips the large coat tightly around narrow shoulders. Grey's gaze softens slightly as he looks down on her. A hand reaches down to touch her shoulder; he gives a surprisingly gentle, "I'll be back soon," and then disappears around the bushes. Cy takes the opportunity to dare a glance down at the mess of bodies and blood on the concrete, then looks away quickly. When Grey comes back, she's staring up dazedly at the underbelly of the bridge, and the huge face of the moon that peeks from beyond it. Grey returns shortly, carrying a big brown leather satchel not much unlike a doctor's bag. He sets it down carefully on an unbloodied bit of ground, then opens it. His movements are brisk and efficient; there's the snap of latex as he puts on a pair of surgical gloves, then gestures the cub over as he gets out another pair. "You made this mess, Cy." This is matter-of-fact. "And /we/ will clean it up." She looks back at him over a shoulder, gaze focusing on the here-and-now. With a slight nod, she slides out of the trenchcoat and folds it, dropping it next to the bag. The fire's begun to burn low in its makeshift pit now, and the cub's expression is hollow and resigned as she snaps on a second pair of gloves. Silently ready to take orders, it would seem. It's grisly work at best, getting the mauled bodies into big black plastic trash bags. Two friends turned into bloody garbage. Once the remains of Kel and Penny are bagged up, Grey starts working the ground where they died, getting up the worst of the blood, with Cy's help, scruffing dirt over the rest, and obliterating all signs of werewolf paws. The cub is silent and pale throughout, pausing only once in order to dry-heave when Penny's head almost falls off the main carcass as they hoist ii into the bag. Other than that, Cy works alongside the older Philodox with numb efficiency. Grey offers no word of praise or scolding, saying nothing but what's necessary for the task at hand. In the end, he looks over the area appraisingly. The fire's been kicked out and stomped into oblivion. There are still signs of an abandoned party, but little more than traces of blood and disturbed ground where the double murder happened. After a few long moments, he nods, satisfied, and peels off the bloody gloves, chucking them into Penny's bag and indicating for Cy to do the same. "Put the coat back on," he says, as he ties up Penny's bag and heaves it up onto his shoulder. "Stay here with the other one. I'll be right back." Cy does as she's told, this time slipping her arms into the sleeves of the far-too-large coat. She hovers wordlessly by the bag that holds Kel's remains, gnawing absently on a thumbnail. It seems far too long until Grey returns, empty-handed. Still all brisk efficiency, he picks up Kel's bag with a grunt. This time, he gives Cy a curt, "Come on," as he heads away from the scene and toward where he's got the brown Ford Torino parked -- rather out of the way of casual view. It helps that it's probably close to three in the morning and that the area has such a poor reputation; there's no one around to witness but a slat-ribbed stray cat who hisses at the two Garou and then scampers off. The girl drifts in his wake after a final backwards glance over the scene of the crime. It's as though no one was there in the first place. She keeps eyes to the ground as she follows the man, and the enormous trenchcoat flares as she stretches her shorter legs to keep up with him. Kel's bag joins Penny's in the trunk of the Torino; the doctor's bag goes in next to them. Grey unlocks the passenger-side door for Cy, gestures her to get in, then climbs behind the wheel. The engine comes to life with a smooth growl and purrs as they pull out. Grey heads not for the house, but to the western outskirts of the city. It's a long, careful drive, in which the older Garou obeys every traffic and speed law and chooses the narrower, less-travelled streets, the ones that, at this time of night, are all but empty of traffic. Cy pages: Does the coat have anything in its pockets? You paged Cy with 'Pack of cigarettes. Camels. A lighter. Random change. The interior of the car is clean but it's clear from the smell and the ashtray that he's a smoker.'. Huddled in the passenger seat, the cub watches the view of the pre-dawn city slip by through the window. She withdraws her hands from the pockets of the borrowed coat after a while, pulling out Grey's own lighter and pack of Camels. Putting one between her lips, she fails a number of attempts to get the lighter to work. Her hands are too shaky. Cy curses hoarsely beneath her breath, the first sound to emerge from her since Grey's arrival. Grey's good side is toward her; he gives a quick glance her way at the curse, then wordlessly reaches over and pushes in the cigarette lighter located under the ancient-looking radio (it has dials and a sliding tuner, and there's no sign of cassette deck or CD player). She looks over at him wordlessly, and waits for the lighter to pop up. Once the cigarette is lit, it's a long while before she speaks up, releasing a billow of smoke: "I did that." The words are flat. Not a question, or an exclamation. Grey nods. "You did." He gives her another brief glance. "Who were they?" "Family." The word is almost voiceless. Cy sniffs dryly, lips twisting briefly downwards. She keeps her eyes on the road ahead. Grey grunts. "They didn't take well to you, did they." His words linger at the boundary between statement and question without going over into the latter. An unsteady shake of the head, and Cy pulls in another lungful of nicotine as she frowns. Propping one foot--now bare, slightly dusty--on the dashboard, she murmurs, "I don't understand." She leans her head back on the leather upholstery, sighs out smoke. "It's our curse," Grey says as he continues to navigate the car through St. Claire's quiet pre-dawn streets. "The rage within us, the beast... it makes us powerful in battle against the Wyrm, and it can save our lives, bring us back from death. But humans sense it and fear it. Even the ones who can stand us for the moment will eventually go mad if forced to live closely to us for a long time. And when they see us in the middle form, Crinos, they lose their minds with fear, most of them." He glances at her. "Were there any others, besides those two?" Cy lifts one shoulder in the folds of the trenchcoat, eyes still on the road. Her profile reveals nothing but the blank numbness of fresh trauma, still. "Twelve," she mumbles. "M'be thirteen." Grey's mouth thins. He gives another grunt. "Did they all seem afraid of you, when you arrived?" "Most of 'em." The girl's expression darkens, and she leans forward to tap embers over the car's ashtray. "I'm in deep shit, aren't I." "I /am/ rather disappointed in you," Grey admits. His voice is surprisingly mild, considering the moon, but there remains a tension in his jaw, and he's too careful, too controlled, about his driving. "We'll have to keep an ear out. /Usually/, humans don't remember attacks like this, but you never know when something might come back to bite you." He gives her a sharp look, then turns back to the road. "So, tell me, Philodox. How would /you/ judge this case?" The silence from her side of the car stretches for a quite a time, as she smokes and ponders his question. "I'd probably kill me and get it over with," she finally answers, low and hoarse. She reaches up a hand to scratch at her hair, then jerks it away as her fingers encounter dried blood. "Liability," she adds flatly. Grey's mouth twitches. It's not quite a smile, and it's gone quickly. "If we culled every cub that tried to run away, or that lost control and killed someone, we would have been extinct ages ago." He turns, finally, onto a narrow, weedy side-street. This area's practically suburb, but it's run-down, filled with little more than empty factory buildings. Sagging houses line the street, and at the end of it, Grey parks in front of a low, squat concrete block with overgrown grass all around it and a single heavy steel door. No windows. A faded, rusting sign on the wall marks it as an old fallout shelter, probably built back in the 60's. Cy notes the area with some interest, popping open the car door as soon as it's parked. Sighing another curl of smoke into the night air, she glances up at the moon. "How many of us _are_ there?" Her curiosity overrides even her shell-shocked monotone. "Locally? Around fifty or so." Grey stalks around to the back of the car and opens up the truck. Out comes the first big plastic bag, heaved onto the tall man's shoulder. One arm keeps the burden steady while the other slams closed the trunk and keeps hold of his keys. He starts toward the bunker door. The girl frowns and follows him gingerly, hopping to avoid sharp patches of gravel in her bare feet. "You mean... they're all over the place? Like, nationally? Grey tries to unlock the heavy padlock one-handed for a moment, then grimaces and hands the key to Cy, who has two free hands. "World-wide. Though we're in the minority in Africa, and there's nothing on Antarctica worth speaking of." The quick-fingered cub tosses her cigarette into the darkness, takes the key and has the lock open in no time. "Fuck," is all she says to his share of information, pulling open the heavy door with a grunt. "Thank you." Grey heads down and into the shelter's darkness. One hand reaches for the light switch he knows is there, flicks it... nothing. It remains dark. He utters a curt, irritated Slavic word. A scruffy trenchcoated silhouette in the doorway behind him, the cub peers into the blackness below. "No juice?" Grey grunts. "Seems not." He pushes the door fully open, kicks a doorstop under it, then sets down his burden. "There's a flashlight in the trunk." He heads back out into the fresh air -- that of the shelter is rather musty and stale. Cy pages: Is he saying 'go fetch', or...? You paged Cy with 'He's heading out toward the car. Got a second bodybag in there, after all. Though Cy still has the keys.'. Cy jingles the keys with restless agitation, glancing up at the lightening sky. She watches the man from her post by the shelter's door with a frown. "Y'done this a lot, haven't you," she notes, pocketing the keys and pulling out a second cigarette. Grey crosses over to the car, stops when he reaches then trunk, then looks expectantly over at the cub. "Unfortunately, yes. Mind tossing me my keys?" The girl looks blank for a moment, then blinks and pulls out the keys to chuck them across the couple yards between herself and the man. "What're we doin' here, anyhow?" Grey catches them adroitly and opens up the trunk. "Disposal," he answers, shouldering the second body and getting out the big, heavy-duty camper's flashlight. Bang goes the trunk lid, closing, and he heads back to the bunker, clicking on the flashlight as he reaches the doorway and gesturing the cub inside with him. "Acid bath," he explains, once they're inside. "Acid /what/?" She echoes his words sharply, moving into the darkened shelter a few steps behind him. Grey kicks the doorstop out from under the door; it clangs shut behind them. Outside the flashlight's influence, shadows jump and stretch as he heads toward the back, past metal-framed cots and steel shelves and a silent, institutional-looking bathroom and shower. In the back are the big metal tubs with shiny interiors. Big enough to hold an adult human body. On the floor nearby are several large plastic jugs marked with skulls and warning signs; on a shelf sit safety goggles and heavy-duty rubber gloves. Grey sets down the flashlight, then dumps the body, bag and all, into the tub, then takes down goggles and gloves. "I'd advise you to stay back," he advises. "While this wouldn't harm us permanently, it would hurt quite a lot." Scanning what she can see of the interior, the skinny cub pauses as her eyes adjust to the light. She edges backwards in the darkness, as directed. Watching with morbid curiosity. Eyes and hands armored, Grey sets about the grisly, necessary task of making two young people, bodies torn by something impossible, disappear. It's magic, but it's slow magic, and hours go by. Time enough for a drained, exhausted cub to doze off. When the task is done, Grey's exhausted himself, and he shakes her awake rather roughly. "Time to go home, Cy." Startled awake, the girl sits up from her place against the cold wall and grunts. Was it all a bad dream? Judging by her half-lit surroundings, it was not. Blurrily, she holds out a hand for him to help her up. Grey clasps her hand firmly and hauls the girl to her feet. "I'm holding off deciding your punishment until I speak to Natalie," he tells her. "Until then, when we get home, you're to shower, change your clothes, and stay put. Understood?" She releases her grip quickly, hands disiappearing into pockets. "Back in the box?" The shadows from the flashlight twist across her features. "We'll see," Grey answers. He herds her out of the shelter, taking the flashlight with them. He makes sure everything's locked up tight before they leave. ============================================================================== To: Natalie, and Tu Cc: Cy Subject: About Cy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As mentioned in the general safehouse +mail, Grey and Cy were absent when Sunday morning dawned, and didn't return until later that morning. Both looking exhausted. Grey sends Cy directly up to bed in the cub's bunkroom. Grey will let Nat and Tu know what happened in detail -- Cy snuck out in the middle of the night and tried to reconnect with her old friends. She frenzied and killed two of them, but Grey thinks the Veil fallout should be minimal, since it happened in a secluded spot (that place under the bridge where Nat and Grey first nabbed Cy) and those who ran away are likely to be suffering from the Delirium. The area's been cleaned up, the bodies disposed of via acid bath at the bunker (where we shot Kevin). Grey also notes that the bunker no longer has electricity, sewer, or running water, just as a side note. ==============================================================================