It is currently 19:00 Pacific Time on Wed Jun 9 2004. Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (54% full). You paged Natalie with 'Great! Your cellphone rings.'. Natalie pages: No caller ID, I assume? You paged Natalie with 'Gibberish.'. From afar, Natalie answers cautiously, "Hello?" You paged Natalie with 'A burst of static screams into your ear, like a sound effect from The Matrix. On the little screen the cell possesses is a repeating text message: CUB CUB CUB CUB CUB CUB CUB CUB. Over and over, one after the other.'. From afar, Natalie winces and yanks the phone away from her ear to peer at the display. "...Oh, hell. What, now?" She gingerly puts the phone back to her mouth. "I'll be in my car in five minutes. I've gotta get dressed." You paged Natalie with 'The screen continues to do its textual shriek: CUB CUB CUB CUB CUB CUB. Then the screen blanks and up comes a page from Yahoo! Maps, showing an address outside of St. Claire, in a western suburb. From the Dominion, the drive's maybe 20 minutes to half an hour... presuming the traffic co-operates, of course.'. You paged Natalie with 'Wait. Yahoo! Maps isn't usually decorated with an animated cockroach GIF, is it?'. From afar, Natalie props her cell into its holder on the dash as she slides into her truck. "I'm going, I'm going." Tires don't -quite- squeal as she makes her way out of the Dominion grounds, but nearly. Small Brick House This is a two-story brick house on the outskirts of St. Claire. The yard is indifferently mowed and there are a couple of old cars in the driveway. A big chainlink fence surrounds the back yard, and there's not much in the way of gardening and no sign of children's toys. Dirk is sitting in a dusty green Geo Metro across the street from the house. He has his seat laid back to lower his visibility and give the impression of taking a nap. The car doesn't particularly stand out; someone would have to get close to notice its occupant, and closer to see that he's awake. All in all, it's been a pretty productive three days of surveillance for the PI; day number four is simply for icing. Michael Houseman and "Skeever" are at home tonight with a handful of friends, and they're holding a small party. The wind brings the tang of pot and the sound of muffled Hendrix. All in all, it's a peaceful night. Until the screaming starts, anyway. It all happens in an instant. One moment, business as usual. The next, it sounds as though World War III were happening in there. Hendrix dies to the sound of something huge falling over (Houseman's speakers, probably) and along with the screams come snarls and the noise made by large objects hitting walls. A window crashes in the back. There's two seconds of stunned inactivity before the door on the Metro pops open. Dirk awkwardly pushes himself out and staggers quickly to his feet, staring at the sudden explosion of chaos across the way. One hand goes in his coat and comes up with a bulky-looking revolver. Another moment of indecision -- then he's off, trotting towards the front door and breathing heavy as his adrenal glands go into wartime production. Dirk Dawson is a man of contradictions. He dresses conservatively, inconspicuously -- yet in a day and age where self-expression is often paramount, this very blandness seems to make him stand out. His face is plain, angular and a little on the rugged side. His sandy-brown hair is cut short, with a minimum of styling. He's pleasant-looking to those attracted to such features, but no real looker. Dirk's usual expression is another contradiction: he holds his mouth as though there was something slightly distasteful in it, small frown-lines at the edges. Yet his manner rarely seems melancholy, for the rest of his face (especially his light blue eyes) radiates a warmth that belies his apparant demeanor. He wears nice suits. Nice, but not flashy. Charcoal grey and black ties dominate. His tan trenchcoat was probably picked off a rack two feet to the left of the suits. Unlike the suits, the coat seems more broken-in; a favored possession. Matching it is the not-quite-battered fedora atop his head. The front door crashes open as Dirk approaches, Skeever staggering out of it. The thirty-something stoner's eyes are wide, his face pale. He barely registers Dirk, and that only long enough to scream, "It's rabid! 911, man!" as he attempts to race past the detective. Dirk lets him go, spinning out of Skeever's way and using the momentum to put his back against the wall beside the door. /Rabid?/ His free hand goes into his overcoat pocket and comes up with a small cell. He rapidly dials 911 and holds the phone to his ear, eyes locked on the doorway. The stench of blood, in quantities, overwhelms the scent of pot. There's another thump in the back of the house, in the kitchen and then... ominous silence. Except for the sound of Skeever screaming as he runs away, too terrified to even go for his car. "Shit!" Dirk's curse is gutteral and under his breath. Then someone answers the phone and a momentary look of relief slides across his face. The PI rattles off the address into the cell, adding "Bring animal control...!" Not waiting to say more, he kills the call and returns the phone to his pocket. Shifting to face the door more fully, he holds the revolver in both hands and prepares himself to leap around the frame... Everything remains quiet. Deadly quiet, in fact. Dirk takes a breath and whips around the doorway, weapon ready to fire. His mouth is set in a hard line, anticipating an ugly scene. And an ugly scene it is, too. The door opens into the living room, which is a disaster of overturned, broken furniture, broken bongs, and an ugly shag carpet soaked in blood and bong water. The shredded corpses of two people lie scattered. Maybe three people. It's hard to say. To his right, Dirk spots an open door with stairs leading downwards, presumably into a basement. Another body, ripped nearly in two, lies across the doorway. With all this carnage about, he almost misses the huddled figure of a teenage girl hunched in the farthest corner of the room, her features barely visible behind a mass of auburn hair. She's covered in blood and stark naked. Chaney is a tall girl, near six feet tall and, it seems, all arms and legs; she looks like a shoe-in for the high school girls' basketball team. She's pale-skinned, liberally freckled, and sports a thick mass of dark auburn hair that doesn't appear to have seen a brush or a pair of scissors in years. Behind that tangle lurk wide, often confused blue eyes and attractively youthful features -- straight nose, high cheekbones, a narrow chin and full lips. At a guess, she's in her late teens. Chaney is currently stark naked and seems to have freckles everywhere. Her hair color is, apparantly, quite natural. Dirk does a good job keeping it together. "Jesus..." His eyes twitch around the scene of carnage, taking it all in. "...Jesus..." He swallows visibly and takes a step in -- then stops as his eyes find the girl. He freezes, staring at her. The girl stares back at him, bloody fingers curling into the thick shag. She's breathing heavily through her mouth, as if from recent exertion. Dirk's expression slowly, painstakingly straightens as he struggles to reassert some semblance of a professional attitude. He succeeds, barely, though his eyes still look rather glassy. They flip left, right -- making sure there's no perp in evidence -- then back to the girl. Carefully, he lowers the gun to a 45 degree angle (pointing right at a shattered Winnie-the-Pooh bong on the floor) and addresses her in a voice that's mostly free of quavering. "Miss...are you okay?" Before the girl can answer -- not that she looks like she's able to answer, probably due to shock -- the man of the house, Michael Houseman himself, thunders down from the upstairs, all five-six of him, his graying hair half out of its ponytail and his Grateful Dead t-shirt covered in blood all down the front. He's clutching a shotgun in both hands. Charging into the living room, he pulls up short briefly to stare at Dirk, the girl, and then Dirk again. "Shit!" he says, then drops the gun and takes off toward the back door at top speed. Dirk instinctively takes half a step after Houseman before stopping short and looking back towards the girl. Should he risk leaving her? Only an instant to decide... "Fuck! Stay here!" He says to her, then turns and sprints after the aging pothead, his coat trailing after him. He jumps over a mangled corpse without thinking. Nat's little green truck comes down the street, easily ten miles over the speed limit. Don't run out into the street, kids. Nat wrestles the truck, one-handed into a parking spot on the wrong side of the street, front bumper nearly touching that of the Metro. The Galliard slides out of the truck and jogs painfully toward the house, cell phone-as-tricoder in one hand and the left, in its sling, pressed against her belly. The pothead paradise turned slaughterhouse greets Natalie much as it did Dirk, with the difference of the front door hanging open. Skeever's no where in sight, and Dirk is hellbent after Houseman. That leaves... the aftermath of a berserking werewolf and the naked girl with the dark auburn hair in the corner of the room. Her fingers uncurl from the shag and grasp the broken leather dog collar that's lying between her feet; her expression remains vague. Natalie pages: I assume that the roach is now having a short burst of hysterics *THAT ONE THAT ONE THAT ONE!* and promptly disappears? You paged Natalie with 'If the cellphone can take pictures, it promptly takes a blurry, smudgey one of Chaney, shows it to Nat on the screen, and then the cellphone goes inactive.'. "I figured that," Nat snaps at the phone, awkwardly folding it and replacing it on her hip. She too gives the house a once-over, taking a little longer than Dirk did, then approaches the girl to stop just out of arm's reach. "Hey there," she offers cheerfully. "Hell, you did a job, didn't you? How're you doing, kiddo?" Chaney fixes her gaze on Natalie, her mouth hanging slightly open in a stupid sort of way. She makes an incoherent whining noise in the back of her throat and awkwardly presses herself further back against the wall, fingers tightening around the broken collar. To think that Dirk had left San-fran to get away from this shit! It takes a few minutes of chasing for the PI to realize that while he possesses the physical edge, the hippie has the home court advantage. When the chase finally leads into some local redneck's rambling front/junk yard, the trail goes cold. Houseman had dodged him. Dirk spends another fruitless minute looking around a wheeless van ("Wilderchess Steam Cleaning!" announces a faded logo along one side) before deciding it's useless. He looks back towards the house. "The dame." His tone is both worried and mystified. Making a mental note to be pissed when he has a spare moment, he turns around and sprints back the way he came. "Oooookay." The Galliard goes to close the front door, then the back, using part of her shirt to make sure she's not leaving fingerprints. A stop into the kitchen, then, "...Damn, it -would- be one of those crappy GE electric stoves, wouldn't it? Hum-di-hum... Don't mind me, kiddo," she continues cheerfully as she returns to the living room and kneels, swearing, beside one of the electical outlets. "This'll just take a couple of minutes and then I'll get you out of here." Chaney watches dumbly, in both senses of the word. She makes another inarticulate back-of-the throat noise and then pants heavily. Distantly come the sound of sirens. Sirens which, alas, seem to be getting closer. Dirk's breathing hard by the time he reaches the backyard fence. He doesn't hesitate, but immeadiatly begins climbing back over it with a wince of exertion (how Houseman got over that fence so fast will forever be a mystery to him). Natalie fiddles with the wires in the outlet for a few minutes, manipulating them with finger and knifeblade. "That'll have to do," she mutters to herself as she plugs a lamp into the mutilated outlet and stands with a grunt, holding out a hand for the girl. "Well, come on, kiddo. No use hanging around this place. Come on." She snaps her fingers in that age-old way one does to summon small animals and dogs. Chaney jolts to attention at the snapping fingers, though her nervous-sounding whine isn't encouraging. Her mouth stretches into a pained grimace, showing most of her teeth, including the back ones. The PI's feet hit the ground with a barely audible grunt from Dirk. He wearily trots towards the back door... The metaphorical brick jolts the back of Nat's head; she blinks at the girl with dawning surprise and understanding. "...Hell." Two steps forward - over a body, thanks - and a two-armed reach is aborted when the strap of her sling pulls at her neck. "Hell," she says again, then shuffles 'round to try and get one arm under the cub's shoulders and help her stand. "Up, girl, that's right. Good girl. Good dog. Here we go." The Galliard's sabotage takes effect moments after the plugs in the lamp, and a merry little electrical fire starts up from the outlet and begins working its way up the wall. The noise and smell seems to frighten the girl all the more. Making regular low, distressed moans and whines, she's as much a hinderance as a help in regards to getting her up and toward the door. Her legs keep buckling and she's got no balance on two legs, and she won't let go of the collar with its cute little bone-shaped tag. Dirk pauses, noticing the closed door for the first time. "Swell, Dirk," he chastises himself, "you left a naked girl standing in the living room without checking the rest of the house." He pulls the revolver once more, and slowly heads towards the door. "Maybe it was the wind that closed it," His hopeful tone immeadiatley darkens. "...or a psycho with an axe who likes privacy." He gives an angry headshake. "Stop talkin' to yourself!" His hand falls upon the knob and turns... Natalie continues to make those senseless soothing noises interspersed with 'Good dog's and 'good girl's as the pair head for the front door. "Dammit, sweetie," she says conversationally - because tone of voice is more important than words, of course - "you couldn't have shifted back to breed, could you? Goood girl." The front door poses a momentary quandry - her uninjured arm is around Chaney, so she has to shuffle them around so she can reach the doorknob with her left hand and pull it open... Chaney clings to the dog collar with one hand and Natalie's shirt with the other. As the fire slowly begins to spread and as Natalie fumbles with the front door, Chaney whines and starts lowering herself to the floor. The back door opens and Dirk's right behind it, his gun out. He spots the growing fire almost immeadiatly. "Fuck." He looks towards the front. "Miss? Are you still here? Miss?" He keeps the gun pointing towards the doorway, expecting his shout to attract the aforementioned psycho as much as a response from the mystery girl. Ignoring the fire for now, he shuffles foward towards the living room. Natalie pages to the room: By the time 'animal control' gets here, freaks out about the bodies, manages to call the cops and the cops get here, the fire ought to be juuuust about ready to break through the wall. Someone might notice the crackling and the smell before then, but they might be a titch distracted, too. You paged the room with 'Oh! It's INSIDE the wall! Shows you how much *I* know.'. From afar, to the room, Natalie grins. Yup, sorry. I wasn't clear. Dirk pages to the room: Just ignore my line about the fire. The rest of the pose works fine. You paged Natalie with 'His voice should be audible to you.'. "Hell," Nat says again, glancing over her shoulder. She stoops to hoist the girl up, then changes tactics and gets an arm around Chaney's belly. With a grunt and an, "Emily's gonna kill me," she manages to awkwardly lift the girl off the ground and balance her lanky length against her hip. Then it's shuffling out the door as fast as possible and into a jouncing run across the lawn, heading for the truck. Chaney seems to have gone into something strongly approximating shock, and she doesn't struggle as Natalie bundles her out of the house and across the lawn toward the truck. The police sirens scream more loudly; they'll be on the scene in a thin moment. Dirk enters the living room. Silence. He spots the front door, still open just as he had left it, apparently. The room appears little different either...save for the fact that the girl is gone. "She's gone!" he yells unnecessarily, and immeadiatly heads towards the front door after a quick check to make sure that the closet is still empty. His foot further shatters the Pooh-bong with a loud crunch as he goes. Natalie continues her jouncing abduction, not daring to shift into glabro. Whatever -would- the neighbors think? There's no traffic on the street yet, thank Gaia - Nat doesn't even look left and right until she's already in the road. Chaney's tossed into the bed of the truck as Nat takes the long way 'round; a firmly hissed, "Stay!" will have to suffice to keep her there as the Galliard slides into the driver's seat and starts the truck. Chaney lets out a loud, yelping cry, and her head pops up into view as she scrambles to right herself. On all fours, of course. Human form just doesn't work well on fingers and toes, though, and her hands are still slippery with fresh blood. Dirk's going to be too late. He glances at the starting truck with a look of suspicion -- a look that quickly turns to anger as he spots the girl in the back. "What the--" Then louder: "Hey! /Hey!!/" He leaves the stoop with an awkward jump and immeadiatly starts pelting towards the truck at top speed. His left hand starts fishing around in his trench pocket as he does so; the right still holds the gun. Natalie's truck backs out into the street before stopping short, undoubtedly throwing Chaney around more, then reverses itself to go tearing off down the street the same way she came in. Unfortunately for Dirk she didn't back up -quite- far enough, and there's a hideous screeching as the bumpers of the cars shriek past each other. Oh well. At least they're both chrome, and the vehicles are both green. It'll never be noticed at highway speeds. Thus it is that Natalie zooms off with the mysterious naked girl, leaving Dirk to deal with a house filled with messy death that's about to go up in flames and the police (Animal Control won't show up until later). From afar, Natalie'll find a light industrial sector or somewhere else w/o observers, then coax/manhandle/whathave you Chaney into the passenger side. Then back to the Dominion, hoorah! You paged Natalie with 'By that time, Chaney will have FINALLY reverted back to breed form. The broken dog collar'll be in the back of the truck and the ID will have her name on it.'. Natalie pages: By that time being stop A, or the Dominion? You paged Natalie with 'Stop A.'. Dirk slows his pace, finally coming up with a shoddy disposable camera in his left hand. He stops, hurridley lines up the best angle he can, and presses the button. A small flash does a poor job of lighting the street, but it's better than nothing. Dirk lowers the camera and stares after the poor, kidnapped girl. "Sorry!" He shouts as loud as he can, then, when the tail-lights are the smallest pinpoints: "Sorry..." After a moment the PI looks back at the house, then trudges towards it, intending to get what shots of the crime scene he can before the cops arrive. Thus ends a shitty day. 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 an office with an adjoining bedroom suite. Chaney is a big wolfdog whose appearance favors the wild side of her heritage. Standing a little over three feet at the shoulder, she is lean and narrow-chested, with long legs and big paws. Her tail, when raised, curls over her back like a husky's, and her muzzle's a little broader than a proper wolf's would be. Apart from these details, and her coloration, she could easily be mistaken for a pure wolf. Chaney's fur is mostly reddish-brown, similar in hue to that of an Irish Setter, but her paws, tail-tip, and ear-tips are dark brown. Dark brown spots cover her lower legs, petering out about halfway up. Her jaw, throat, and belly are all a pale yellowish color, and above each blue eye is a small white spot. Once the wolf is safely inside the cab Nat takes off again, heading for the Dominion. She chats amiably to the bemused cub the entire time, more of a stream-of-consciousness than anything with real content. She coaxes the wolf inside with snaps and a what-the-hell, "Chaney, come." Once they're in she immediately starts unbuttoning her shirt while she lets the wolf roam, merely following after to make sure she doesn't get into trouble. Chaney is, clearly, a very unhappy animal, though she seems to know the sound of her name and how to come when called. Still covered in blood (and leaving pawprints of it everywhere) she is easily ushered into the mansion and then immediately slinks off for the nearest thing to hide under or behind. That would likely be the furniture in the parlor. Nat stops at the doorway, blocking the animal's escape, and continues to disrobe. It's awkward with only one hand - she swears at the buttons and her boots more than once - but eventually she manages to shuck her clothes. She's still mostly covered with bandages and gauze, though those split and drop off as she shifts - first to Crinos, then down to a three-legged lupus. On the small side for an adult, this beige female wolf probably doesn't tip the 100 pound mark. Unlike many wolves she doesn't sport a darker mask around her eyes; instead a scattering of darker brown hairs fleck her entire body. Frequent small scars suggest she is the survivor of plenty of fights. She isn't as long-legged as other wolves, her build more like a brick than a gazelle, hinting at stamina in addition to speed. Her eyes are not a typical wolven gold, but more of a pumpkin-orange. Chaney finds the couch a marvelous thing to hide beneath, and once there she curls into a ball, ears flattened back against her skull. She misses Natalie's transformation while licking at the blood from one forepaw. Holds-the-Line pages: Now that she's nekkid and lupus, she's got nasty gashes ever'whars. Belly's probably the worst of it, though she's not using her left front leg. What isn't clawed is bitten, and what isn't bitten is very little. Holds-the-Line limps slowly over to join the cub under the couch, her own ears flattening as she has to stretch herself to crawl beneath. I am Holds-the-Line, she informs the cub. Her scent's strange - the woman in the truck and yet... not. But it is. Except she isn't. You are safe. You will be safe with me. Chaney whimpers softly, confused and upset. She trembles visibly. Not. Not safe. Not safe. Safe. Holds-the-Line nudges at the cub's ears, then gives it a reassuring lick. Safe safe safe. Your ear is dirty but you are safe. Chaney sniffs at the smaller bitch's wounds and whines again, distressed; this does little to convince her that she's safe. Bad, bad, bad. Not safe. Not. Alpha. Alpha? The cub squirms away from Natalie and out from under the couch, whining as she trots toward the doorway. Alpha? Alpha? Holds-the-Line sighs and wiggles out from the couch to go after her, ears up and tail painfully - literally - high. The Alpha is not here now. I am Beta. I say you are safe here. You should come back... are you hungry? The change of subject ought to give the bitch momentary pause, at least. That's funny. That pile of clothing wasn't in the doorway a minute ago. The human bitch was wearing it. Chaney stops and looks back at Holds-the-Line. Her ears twist backwards. With an eloquent, drawn-out whine, she makes protest at the strangeness of the place and the smells she doesn't recognize and and and. Turning her back on Nat, she continues trotting for the doorway, then stops to sniff at the pile of discarded clothing. Holds-the-Line pages: You want to call it? Nat'd see if she could get her up into one of the bedrooms and then... shut the door. Dahdahdum. Holds-the-Line pages: It'd probably be the empty room Nat was using earlier. It's got a nice blanket nest in there, with only a little blood. *innocent whistles8 You paged Holds-the-Line with 'Not a problem. Happily, Chaney doesn't grok doorknobs. Though there'll be lots of scratching, whining, and HOWLING during the night. :)'. You paged Holds-the-Line with 'High-content wolfdogs don't bark... but they do howl. A lot.'. Holds-the-Line pages: Nat'd stay in there with her in lupus, in a vain effort to keep her calm. You paged Holds-the-Line with 'Poor Nat. :}'. Holds-the-Line pages: Yup. But at least it's good for the healing. :p Nat leaves a note on the kitchen table: We've got a new cub. Literally. Lupus. Her name's Chaney. She's freaked right now, so if you aren't Garou, leave her _alone_. Be friendly, but DON'T APPROACH. We're up in the room I was using last night, and we're both in lupus. The door's closed for a reason. I had to set a fire at the place I grabbed her from, but I don't know how well it caught before anyone came. There were sirens on the way - don't ask me how - and someone else in the house. I don't know if he saw us. Marcus, Jer, if you could keep an ear to the ground... crap, that's her howling. - N PS - Lucas, this means you, too. She's way more freaked than you were, so keep away from her for now unless she approaches you.