Post by Wilhelm Opens-the-Way on Mar 19, 2010 19:04:30 GMT -8
3:45 AM
South Bothell
A few weeks back
Three fourty five in the morning and it all hits the fan. Why is it hell never happens at a decent hour?
It's me, our Alpha Holly Walks-With-Dreams, Ellis Rages-With-Machines and Two-Shakes in the Umbra when we reach out to Mammoth. He trumpets like a freight train as he thunders into view, Holly leaping onto his back in Crinos and Ellis following suit in Homid, readying that hand-cannon he bought from one of our contacts.
Shakes tugs an opening in the weaver-webs of the house and peers at the spirit tied to the Distributor and winces.
"Jesus..."
"What?", Holly asks.
"This is at least a Jaggling," he says, shaking his head.
The unspoken words 'what kind' never need to be asked, as the Theurge breathes the word, "Defiler."
"Shit." Says Ellis.
Holly and I share the same look we have three or four times in the last year, the one that says, 'this could kill us, but we're going to do it anyway'.
"Lets do this," I say with mock confidence.
Two-Shakes calls the Defiler into the Umbra at three forty five in the morning and then the world shakes.
Black smoke, dense and oily poured into life Umbraside where Shakes stood, chanting. Purple and blue-black veins of taint visibly pulsed inside the smoke. Voids of darkness fixed upon the triangular wedge of ephemera that should have been it's head served for baleful, unblinking eyes. I watch as too-long arms with wisp thin and razor sharp claws boil from it's center torso like crude oil.
For months the Roadhouse Rollers have been tracking down lead after lead squatting behind dumpsters looking for deals, paying off street dealers and avoiding detection. Our contact, a creature who shall remain nameless due to his um... shadier connections led us to this guys trail after we greased his palms with money, drugs, and a little info. Of course I don't trust him not to sell us out, but he doesn't probably trust me not to eat his face, so we smile, slap hands full of dollar bills and stay friendly out in the open, knowing that one day we might find each other on the wrong side of a line somewhere. That will be an interesting day. Point is, up to now, we've been quiet about this. Today that ends.
Mammoth roars and trumpets, setting loose a sonic shock wave that lays flat the spirit grass on the Umbral hill outside of the distributor's weaver-webbed house. The Defiler shuddered and shuddered a horrifying ululation, a sound that brought to mind the image of a howling cub being dragged into the Wyrm's gullet by it's throat.
In an instant, it flashed forward in attack, leaving black afterimages of itself behind while it raked mammoth with its monofiliment talons. Blue-black veins of taint coursed over Mammoth's massive, woolly frame.
"NO!" Holly and Ellis shouted together. Shakes gasped, returning to focus on binding the Jaggling.
I howled my battle cry and put my great-axe where I hoped it might do the most damage, center mass in the Defiler. It sunk deep, fueled by the strength of my Garou muscles. Flecks of it's essence pattered away from the wound as I struck, staining and melting the grass.
Holly drew back her bow and said a prayer to Gaia under her breath, wrath fueling the draw such that the bow nearly cracked. She loosed an arrow that struck true, setting the creature to tearing it out while it howled and burbled and rasped in protest.
Ellis fired the .50 cal desert eagle hand cannon special order with a grim set to his jaw, Dirty Harry atop a rearing Mammoth. The massive rounds tear holes in the creature, slamming it backwards with the shock of impact. All four hits happened within seconds of each other, and within instants of that, the Defiler curled in upon itself with a death rattle and dissipated into wispy, acrid smoke.
At three forty-stupid in the stupid AM, (Why? Because the distributer wanted to bone his girlfriend before he went to sleep! Least his last night on earth will be a good one) We finally peeked across the Gauntlet to see him sleeping a little while after she leaves in a tarnished red hatchback, then all this.
There was a moment of silence between us as we considered the victory. I thanked Mammoth for his help, as he shook the taint, like rain from his wolly body, nodded our thanks to the stunned Two-Shakes who hadn't even completed the Binding Rite for the spirit, and with time to Cleanse, but no time spent to celebrate, we stepped sideways into the distributor's home.
I try to get his attention, throwing the earphones from my iPod over his ears and turning up the music really loud. He wakes up with a gun in his hand, probably from under his pillow. I don't have time to think, I simply act, slapping it out of his hand. There's a moment of panic as it goes off, burying a silver slug in the door jamb next to Ellis' head.
We know all of his dealers, we know his route, and we know the spirit bound to him would have killed him in an instant and run back to its masters the second his little monkey mind flinched and tagged out. It's why we'd traded Theurges in Bellingham for the job. Deals-With-Spirits is keeping the card game going up north while Two-Shakes helps us out down here with spirit magic that's a little out of his league. Besides, I think Shakes preferred helping us out with some action to dressing like Gandalf the Grey after losing that hand to his that Ragabash. Can't say I blame him, his Santa beard looked itchy.
I consider the plan that I'm to play bad cop, telling the drug-dealing weasel that his inky friend has gone on to the next world, and then realize that if I'm bad cop, Holly is worse cop. She's out for blood, I can tell, probably because she didn't get to get her claws wet in that last fight over the Cairn space maybe. It's unlike her to be so... feral. It scares me a little. It scares the distributer worse. The scent of human urine is unmistakable in the room.
It shouldn't take long. A proper application of Persuasion and pure intimidation gets him talking after not much time has passed, especially once he realizes that what is left of his spirit guardian is still dripping from my axe blade.
Names, locations, dates, contacts, connections, he lays it all out for us. Holly and I, working in tandem like this pick his mind for information like the marrow from a chicken bone. Months of work is finally paying off. The crew running Thrive are underworld and black market connected, part of the Seattle hive's network of Black Spiral Dancer Kinfolk.
I know the makers of this drug. I know the names of the BSD Kinfolk establishment. We finally have what we need to bring them down, and cripple the Seattle Hive's Kinfolk in the proccess.
When it is clear that the distributer has nothing more to offer than the rest of the contents of his bladder, we four share a look and no what must be done. Ellis replaces the silver in the distributor's clip with a standard clip, keeps the silver aside, no need to test the Veil. While Holly digs the silver bullet from the door jamb, Ellis is on his laptop, calculating spray patterns, ballistics trajectories. I put the gun back in the distributor's hand, wrap his finger around the trigger, place my large clawed hand over his, the gun, and to spite his struggling, bring gun, hand and barrel underneath his chin.
For a terrible instant, he gasps, too weak to resist my Garou strength, too busy struggling to shout, and then with a loud pop everything that was Ricky Jones, north-end Thrive distributer and BSD Kinfolk exits the back of his skull at a speed averaged to 1,772 to 1,798 feet per second and paints the wall and ceiling behind him with gray matter and bright red arterial blood. I let go of his hand the instant the trigger was pulled as instructed by Ellis to make sure that the body falls naturally.
We don't meet each other's eyes afterward for awhile, but slide back into the Umbra, thank Two-Shakes and head back to the bar, knowing this isn't over yet and thinking;
If I could sleep after this, I might even get some rest...
OoC>>Thanks to former AST Jason for an awesome street-level story. Will miss your Storytelling, but am looking forward to role-playing with your character!<<OoC
