Participants:
Also starring NPCs by Abby
| Scene Title | Happiness is a Warm Gun |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Danko decides to round out his evening by breaking curfew and murdering Ferrymen operatives. Fortunately, by Colette, Magnes and Huruma's powers combined, things get a little too chaotic a little too quickly for him to take it as far as he might've liked to. |
| Date | July 31, 2009 |
Outside of Old Lucy's
It's late. Two hours past curfew, in fact, but the last patrol car that passed this way was two blocks over ten minutes ago. All's quiet along the sidewalk that braces against the curb laid out in front of Old Lucy's. No yellow cabs churn through murky runoff pooled in the street and the parking meters are unoccupied save by one old junker that's been there for weeks untowed.
The sky stretches brownish and bruised overhead; the wind is cool and quiet, too weak to drag at any but the lightest bits of tatty garbage dusted along the walk. Everything's neutral and still. Even the rats seem to have taken the night off.
In the alley between Old Lucy's and the next venue over, where street lights only just barely manage to touch, a man in a black coat is partially visible around the far side of a hulking dumpster. He's face down, glasses bent and glittering broken a few feet away, just out of reach. Still breathing. Probably. Maybe he got sleepy while he was waiting.
Standing on a taller building near Old Lucy's, in inline skates that contrast with the rest of his semi-casual suit, he watches the bar as the wind sways through his jacket, all Batman-like. Of course he's nothing like Batman, considering he's only about a month into his investigative training, but hey, wind swaying jacket! "Cloud of smoke as he appears, Master of surprise. Who's that cunning mind behind that shadowy disguise? Nobody knows for sure, but bad guys are out of luck…" He's singing to himself, quite quietly, but singing to himself nontheless…
No sound of a motor. No bike. Nothing except boots with soles of hard tread. Even those are silent as Huruma skulks through the alleyways of a familiar territory. A mid-length black jacket covers most of the dark woman's torso, while her legs are wrapped in pants that tuck sleekly into the tops of her tall boots. The skin of her upper chest is bare due to something low-cut, though perhaps to balance it out- the area of her belt and ribcage seems a tad bulkier than what is normal. No jewelry, no shimmering bangles, nothing that marks through the dark of mid-night apart from perhaps a glimmer of her eyes in weak streetlight.
Familiar territory, some familiar minds, some not so much. The field always with her as the center flickers invisibly about the surroundings. Poking, prodding, slithering.
Ashley got the call from Wireless. Possible individual in need of help, danger was pretty immanent. Seeing as she was with Colette and what the teenager could do might come in handy if there's people around that they need to not be seen, she was brought along with Ashley. "Goes by the name Cahrlie" The raven haired woman in khaki's and a dark windbreak, commensurate with the humid weather and the sprinkling through out the night. They'd skipped quite a few patrols. "Debating where we take him. Maybe the church further in, Miriam's" She looks to Colette for her input. She's got a backpack, flashlight and a gun. Be prepared.
Carnation red is the least stealthy color possible, it is bright, and vibrant and loudly proclaims here I am in a high=pitched and squeaky voice, perhaps also waving flags. It's no small wonder that Colette Nichols has never had to do anything resembling evading the police before. That color is of her t-shirt, garishly shining out against the drab grays and browns of the city streets at night. "I don't…" Her voice is an awkward, raspy whisper when she tries to be quiet. Pushing up dark sunglasses along the bridge of her nose to shield her eyes, despite it being night-time, Colette looks over to the bar, looking back over her shoulder as she follows behind Ashley down the street. "We parked the van like, a block away. I mean— if he's hurt we— " she grimaces, biting down on her lower lip.
"I— I guess the church might be good. I'm— I don't really— " her sightless eyes flick to one side, watching the kid on rollerblades across the street, just barely able to see his colors on the edge of her unusual senses. "Whatever you think's best. I'm— still learning. We— let's go and see what's going on. I— um," she shifts her shoulders anxiously, one hand wrapped around the strap of her olive-drab messenger bag tightly. "If the cops show up, I'll try and shade us all, but— just— don't move too far away from me."
In the pit of the alley, the man in black who may or may not be Charlie is beginning to stir. He groans once, low pitched and in pain such that the sound carries well in the humidity. There's even a touch of an echo before the sound dies out and replaced by a scuffing, dragging flop when he tries to roll himself over onto his back. Glass scrapes and crunches under his dead weight. Blood pat-pat-pats out of a divot marred into his temple. He's not going anywhere fast.
Across the street from the alley's maw, two rooftops down from the one Magnes has opted to occupy and masked from easy view of him by the barrier of an immense billboard, two men in black fatigues draw themselves up into position at the sound of whispered voices and quiet footsteps tracking in from far below. Balaclavas mask all but the pale glitter of their eyes from sight, lifeless grey washed a sickly shade of yellow by whatever street light manages to make it all the way up here. There's a quiet clack of equipment being shifted just a hair against the wind, then silence and stillness once more. Definitely too quiet out here.
Magnes doesn't pay attention to the groans yet, he, well, he's a Delivery Boy, he hears those things a lot. He skates a bit deeper into the roof, jumping down into a different alley, then skates out and across the street to the girls. "I uh, e-excuse me, g-girls." Girls, two of them, strangers, but, it's his duty! "I uh, it's late, s-so, uh, past curfew. You need help?" Whew, he got it all out, just as he stops right in front of them.
Huruma stops. Midway down an alley, she simply stops. Nobody would dare to be watching her too closely- or else they might see her eyebrows knit together, and the corners of her lips pull taut into a half of a frown.
She wavers in proceeding, instead doubling back to move parallel the alley of Lucy's rather than move forward those few long strides onto it from where she had been. The woman slinks along the more unseen paths now, practically sniffing out the directions of strangers and at least one, more familiar mind.
Girls. Ashley isn't that young. She's also a little on the mannish side. "No kid, we're good, we live just around the block. Just stopping to pick up a sick friend and get them to our place, but thanks for watching out for us. Now if you'll excuse us? Cause the more you stand in our way, the longer we'll be out here" Ashley's trying to be nice. "Maybe you should be heading home too"
There's a glance to Colette and a jerk of her head for the teenager to walk around Magnes and carry on. This guy didn't match the description, and the alley that they were going for has movement. Charlie, hopefully. Now if the kid would scram….
"Uh, you're totally out after curfew too, dude." Both of Colette's brows raise as she looks down at Magnes' skates, the up along his suit as a crooked smile creeps up on her lips, "We're…" She glances up to Ashley, "We're fine so like," one hand waggles towards Magnes in a shoo fashion as she averts her focus from him in that way only a teenage girl can give a young man the cold-shoulder, "you know."
There's an awkward smile offered up to Ashley and a shrug of her shoulders, and as if trying to make things seem natural, and get away from Magnes, Colette starts crossing the street towards Old Lucy's, anxiously start-stopping in her path to the other side of the street, halting for cars that aren't there. The anxiety of only being able to see thirty feet in any one direction makees the prospect of something as simple as going to the opposite sidewalk harrowing.
One very minor adjustment in a quiet setting can really change the way a place feels.
In the relative dark of the street, amidst cuts of long shadow and grimy yellow orange light a single point of warm red light falls dead center in the space between Ashley's turned shoulders.
Up on the rooftops, there's a scuff of rifle composite scraping against stiff canvas, then the click of a safety being turned carefully over. Inhale. Exhale. Danko's gloved trigger finger grazes down past the guard.
"I, uh, well see…" Magnes gets that look from Colette, like a firm fist grabbing his insides. "I-I'm sorry, I mean, I really shouldn't let you girls walk alone, but I mean, if you really wanna go alone, I uh, alright." He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, then rolls out of the way to let the two walk.
Out of one of the few little places she can, Huruma breaks the dull sight of the drab alleyway like a rock dropped into a pond; she comes out not far in front of the pair of women and Magnes' turning shoulders. Her eyes flash in streetlight, and though there is no actual sound- what may be fitting is the crashing down of high-strung piano keys- a shivering gesture of putting someone at attention.
"He's right, you know. It's not safe. Her voice hisses loudly, both eyes focusing past the three into the air. The starkness of the stare could easily be doing otherwise, but right now- Huruma does not need to be sizing anyone up. She seems to be waiting.
There was no one and suddenly, there's a plethora. Ashley's lips purse, her hands in her windbreaker pocket. She's oblivious to the bead of red drawn on her back from the gun. "We're a block from home, we just want to pick up our friend and leave. I suggest you let us pass" Her fingers curl around the gun in her hand. No fear comes off the old woman, just confidence.
Halfway across the street, the sound of voices catches Colette off-guard. She turns, standing in the middle of one of the lanes, looking back towards Ashley, "Hey!" Her brows furrow together, and she starts to walk back across the street, "come on we're almost home, just— " Huruma comes into her field of view finally, and Colette hesitates in the road, then looks back to Ashley with a look of uncertainty hidden behind her sunglasses. "C— come on," she jerks her head, motioning across the street.
It's only then, and too late, that she perceives the beam of laser light in her color senses. Her mouth opens, brows rising up, hands starting to lift.
It's like everything is suddenly happening in slow motion to her. "Ashley!"
Too late. Everything lines up in perfect form and Danko's already on the careful, casual ghost of an exhale, trigger finger easing back on the pull.
The crack of a rifle across the street is impossibly loud, clapping flat against the moisture in the air to double back down upon those gathered at the alley before the first echo has time to fade. Ashley barely has time to turn her head after Colette's cry before her breast literally explodes outward through the sternum, liquefied heart and lung spattering in a wide arc across Huruma's dark post. She too seems to be locked into slow motion, still on her feet for the second or two it takes her to realize something terrible has happened.
Back on the roof, the shorter of the two men in black bolts another round up into the chamber while his buddy collects the spent casing from the first. Ears ringing and nostrils flared against the stench of gunpowder and hot metal, he tilts the thick of the suppressor a couple've inches to the side with a mechanical flex of his shoulder.
This time when the red light appears, it's zagging for purchase on Colette.
Magnes tries to stay calm. The woman was shot, but the sniper is still there, he has to stay calm, remember his training. Another light, this one on Colette. There's nothing he can do, except react. "Watch out!" he exclaims, suddenly strafing in front of Colette and holding his arms out, trying to block the shot, or take it. "Run!"
Huruma watches the scene as if it were simply an interesting television program, little more. Colette yells, Ashley half-turns, the bullet pierces flimsy skin and bone armor like a liquid-filled pinata. An arc of dull red sloshes almost merrily against the front of Huruma's legs as Ashley spills herself on the ground. The smile on the dark woman's face is unmistakable. "Little girls shoul'not liiie…" Her voice drawls through the alleyway.
Eyes bounce carefully from the body's fallen position to Magnes as he moves into the path of what sounds like yet another shot. Huruma's hand ducks silently into her coat, fingers wrapping around the cold metal grip of her own pistol.
She does not draw it, but her calculating is also unmistakable. Cardinal direction, angle, height, tendrils of her field stretching out deviously to see if they can catch just a taste. And similarly, the woman seems only physically distracted by the sheer luck of the draw now lain in a puddle in front of her feet.
Sucking in a shuddering breath, Colette's eyes are wide behind her slouching sunglasses, mouth open and hands immediately rocketed up to cover her mouth, as if afraid of how loud the scream she might emit would be. The young girl takes a staggering step back, one boot scuffing against the pavement as she hears Magnes' cry. The young girl turns, pleated skirt swishing about at thigh level, and she can feel the presence of the crimson beam, feel the way it bends and distorts light. She could do so much more with it, if only she wasn't panicking. Turn it into a laser, bend it back on its source, cut the shooter in half.
But instead she panics. She screams through her fingers and drops into a crouch like a frightened animal, and then in a sudden rippling haze of heat-mirage, disappears from sight. The sudden invisibility comes with a mirage-like distortion of the area around her, along with an unintentional coalescing of the ambient light, causing street lamps to glow slightly brighter.
Worse of all, in her panic, the color begins to drain out of everything in a thirty foot sphere around her. The light from the street lamps desaturates, the ground, the buildings, Huruma and Magnes, all of their color bleeds away as if they were suddenly thrust into the world of a Frank Miller comic book, sharp on contrast and low on color content.
Invisibility, however, doesn't hide the panicked sobbing and screaming as her invisible form crawls on hands and knees towards Ashley's lifeless and bloody corpse.
First Danko's scope is filled by the blurry push of Magnes's hands against his efforts. The thought occurs that a bullet through him would probably do just as well in carrying on through her, but before he can capitalize on the whim, she wavers out of sight entirely. "Damn it." Disappointment and irritation mingle matter-of-fact with colder calculation, armor scaled and reptilian in its slow wind after what's left for him down there on the street. Not much, from the look of things.
Right hand dropped away from the gun to paw at his radio, he informs the rest of his team with a quiet, "We've got an invisible woman here," as he watches the progression from dirty color to black and white, taking everything in at once for the first time since he leaned up to the scope. Huruma is familiar. She's familiar the way the sensation of cold water trickling slow down the back of your neck is familiar — more visceral unease than specific recognition there when Danko drags the rifle back off of its supports. He reaches to unstrap the pistol at his side instead, and the laser light is out've the picture. "Get this packed up. And don't fuck around — no telling who's already on their way."
When a bullet doesn't go through him, Magnes suddenly turns around, moving to lift the downed woman as he tries very hard to keep any more blood from coming out of her. Sure, her heart basically got exploded, but he's optimistic. "Huruma, where'd the other girl go? We've gotta get out of here!" He's momentarily forgotten that Huruma is technically his enemy, and the black & white doesn't seem to have registered yet. "Girl, where are you? I'm getting us out of here! Huruma, come over here, I'll try and carry all three of you." Because, it's the only plan he can think of.
Attention fixes on the vanishing child nearby as Colette shimmers into the invisibility provided by her light-bending. Technically, they fix on the emission of fear- Huruma's eyes suddenly shine bright as beacons as the contrast of the world tilts and whirls into mocking sort of imbalance. It flatters her, the black and white, the bare shimmer on where they meet. It is that vision of Huruma that sends a familiar stroke through one Emile Danko there on the rooftop.
She steps forward, ignoring the little wailings of boy wonder at her heels now. The noise of the splashing blood under her boots sloshes her into focus again; her eyes upturn with a snap from the invisible fear, focusing now with increasingly disturbing accuracy upon the rooftop afar. Whiskers out, ears pinned, teeth bared.
Scuffling sounds, scruffing shoes on concrete and whimpering noises move further away from Magnes' position. There's a click, a clatter, then a thunk from the blue USPS drop box between two parking meters as Colette's unseen back slumps up against it. A quiet click, several beeps, and then frantic breathing comes before shaky, frightened words spilling out from the unseen girl. "Oh my god, oh my god, pick up, pick up, oh my god, oh my god."
The sound of a phone ringing is too muffled by everything else, from Colette's pathetic noises to the sounds of Huruma's footfalls through thick pools of blood. Why does nothing ever go quite as Magnes' plans?
"Gabriel!" Colette's voice shrieks out, "Gabriel! Oh my God! She's dead— she's dead he shot her! Oh my god! Y— you— oh my god!" She's frantic, huddled up in a tiny, unseen ball trembling like a leaf on a tree, ragged sobs interrupt each word, she can only now feel the warmth of blood on her cheeks from the gunshot, crying into the phone to the first person she calls in times of crisis. Well, the first one who has a phone.
One level, two levels, three levels, four, Danko takes the fire escape at a practiced hustle, sidearm at ready in his right hand while his left brushes rough over rusted railing.
When he finally appears to the remaining trio in the mouth of the opposite alleyway, he's a blocky construct of matte black and light eyes. Short and compact, breathing fast from the exertion of the climb down he flicks his eyes quick from Magnes to Huruma, still trying to zero in on the source of the third voice. Still here to be shot. But he didn't come prepared for that particular powerset, and in the next breath he's melting back into the shadows to make his escape in the opposite direction.
When he sees the black shadow of a man, even from this distance (Which is rather horrible for Magnes' aim, especially in this light), he immediately reaches into his jacket with his free hand, draws a gun, then starts firing in the direction of the shadow. "You take her." he says to Huruma, still keeping his gun trained in the shadow's direction, offering the body for her to protect, and not eat.
If there is one thing that Magnes has yet to learn, it something the world calls The Food Chain. He is decidedly below Huruma. She ignores him once again, drawing the weapon free from under her coat. "Mailbox." At least she feels thoughtful enough to leave him an obvious hint in the form of a passive hiss of air.
With that, Huruma springs into motion, launching herself forward and commencing a swift chase on the figurative tips of Danko's heels. On foot, with her senses at full grid- a grounded chase gives her an advantage that she now uses to its fullest potential.
Blithely sobbing into the phone, Colette cradles it in both hands, her whimpering words carrying out clearly from the direction just ten feet away that Huruma indicated. "G-Gabriel, oh my god Gabriel y— you have to— you— I don't know I— I'm on a street— " she breathes in a shuddering, sucking breath, exhaling something far less calm, a ragged and choked back sob.
"S— someone shot her, I— oh my god please— " trembling as she begins to flicker in and out of visibility, like a television with bad reception, Colette can't focus on her invisibility through her emotional bereavement. "P-Please," she whines out into a cell phone cradled in one hand by her mouth. "We— a bar— Lucy's— " her sobbing comes even more ragged now, eyes wrenched shut, sunglasses on the ground next to her as she finally comes fully into view. "There's so much blood, she— she's dead."
A flicker of something next to the mailbox is enough to stay Danko's retreat for a few crucial seconds. His eyes narrow and his gun hand goes up, braced solid in the saddle of his left hand only for a little hailstorm of bullets to come ripping his way out've Magnes's direction. He fires back thataway instead, just the once, aim solid if not particularly precisely measured in the milisecond before return fire bricks solid off the flat of the vest built into his fatigues. And Huruma is coming.
Ok. Time to go.
He turns tail, pragmatism filling in where a cold desire to see both Ferrymen women stained with blood in addition to tears leaves off, boots scuffing out a fast-paced tattoo across dark asphalt. He's fleet on his feet, agile enough to dodge around and leap over obstacles like garbage and homeless people without thought. There's a black van up ahead, next street over, and he has a head start. To make matters worse, automatic gunfire rails out from the roof overhead, tracing a line of shattered pavement at Huruma's heels.
Magnes takes a clear shot through the ribs, narrowly missing his lungs. He yells rather loudly, but holds tightly on to the woman, trying to suppress his own bleeding now. "D-damnit…" he strains out, knowing he has to act fast, because god knows what that bullet hit inside of him. He suddenly starts flying in Colette's direction, not bothering to ask or argue with her about coming, he just sheathes his gun and tries to scoop her up in his free hand. "We have to get out of here, now!"
As long as she sees- or feels- where he is going, Huruma is able to follow. She is just as agile and as spring-heeled as Danko, though her target area is obviously lengthier- it does not stop her from catching up, even as the ground behind her is peppered with the cracks of bullets in already taxed asphalt. She shifts, moving along the shade of the wall and giving as much obstruction as she can without visibly doing so.
The next second she gets his figure even a fraction into her vision- Danko is met with what feels like a wall of panic, and of fright- it could be naturally attributed by the fact that he has sharp teeth nipping dangerously at his coattails, if he were not trained to know otherwise.
Running, shooting, shouting. Colette turns up to where Magnes grabs at her arm, eyes wide in the realization that she can be seen. "W— wait! No! I— " the phone slips out of her hand and clatters to the pavement as Magnes yanks her up as gravity bends her slight weight ot his will. Wide-eyed, it's only now Magnes can see she's blind. Milky white eyes staring sightlessly out at him. For once, though, given her young age Magnes is the more mature one of the pair — at least physically.
The pattering pop of automatic gunfire causes Colette to hunch over, staring wide-eyed at Ashley's corpse. "We— we can't leave— " something causes Colette's words to bite off. Maybe it's fear, maybe it's a lesson in when to fold from her brief time with the Vanguard Remnant. She winces, looking back to Magnes with brows furrowed. Then, tears still streaming down her cheeks, she nods, ready to follow his lead.
Forgetting for the moment, the voice over her cell phone, and the man on the other end.
Danko's heart rate picks up against his will, pupils inking black against colorless irises over the chuff and drag of his breath against the screen of his balaclava. He's still running hard, left hand scraping automatic over the wall at his side for support when he risks a glance back over his shoulder at what, exactly, he's dragged out of the brush with him. All in all it's something he's felt before: like knowing he's been drugged but still being in a position where he has to deal with the physiological effects. Logic remains firmly intact, as does his aim when he darts out the alley's far end and whips around to level his gun stiff upon the massive woman giving chase.
Hulking black van to his back, Huruma to the front, he draws the hammer back and huffs as well as he can through the mask. His eyes are hard despite adrenaline that's locked tension deep into the set of narrow shoulders. The gun isn't shaking. "Turn it off."
"I'm taking you two to a hospital. I don't know what the bullet hit, it hurts like hell, and it might get worse any minute now, so if you have better ideas on where you need to go, start talking." Magnes is not happy, with a dead woman over his shoulder, a blind woman in his hand, and a bullet wound through his ribs. He is cranky. The flying is fast, though of course not powered flight fast; it's free falling without the vertigo.
Huruma has caught her prey, in some roundabout manner- Emile Danko stops, whirls on her. An interesting sight, though not many try it. Sharp horns ducked low to block the incoming teeth and claws. Her own pistol is cocked and ready in front of her. High midnight in Greenwich Village.
Even before the man in black opens his mouth, the false panic dribbles away, and words do the same from Huruma's lips, spread with hints of purring mirth and tips of white teeth flashing in a straight-level smile. Huruma's eyes fix past the barrel of his gun onto the pair that stare steadily back.
"It's been such a looong time…"
A sudden yelp of fright comes from Colette as she's launched into the air along with Magnes, gravity inverting beneath them both. This is like what Ygraine can do. The thought rattles around in her head, even as she wraps both arms around Magnes and buries her face against his shoulder, trying to hide both the vision of what is slung over his shoulder in a wet, bloody mess and the sudden ascent and swooping descent.
Landing as if from a bounding leap on a rooftop. Colette quickly disengages from Magnes, wiping a smudge of blood from her cheek with one hand. She stumbles away, staggering for a moment as matchstick-thin legs buckle, stocking-covered knees nearly knocking together before she regains her footing. "Do not" she waves her hands, "do— do whatever— " she sucks in a breath, stumbling across the rooftop as the sound of distant police sirens wail in response to the patter of gunfire. Response is slow in this part of Manhattan, but patrols are doubled due to the curfew.
Mind reeling, Colette can't think of anywhere to take Magnes, she can't break the rules of the Ferry so soon in, she has no idea who Magnes even is. A cop wouldn't run from sirens, would he? "Take— " Colette swallows loudly, "Take her to a hospital." She motions to Ashley, one hand shaking violently as she backpedals from Magnes again.
Her blind eyes scan the rooftop, unsure of how far away from the scene she is, but the sound of gunfire has stopped at least. "Just— just leave me here. Go." She can't risk taking Magnes anywhere, or going to the hospital with him. Too much, too many responsibilities. The wave of nausea and fear finally hits her like a sledgehammer, and the young girl doubles over, vomiting on the rooftop.
Ethan has reconnected.
Breathing slowed to a more deliberate draw and push through his sinuses, Danko resteadies his grip on the heft of his gun. Past that he's quiet, humorless all the way to the level knit of his brows while he watches her smile split white against the shadow pooled in around her.
Even without pulling the black of the mask off, he's familiar. The way he holds himself, the way he holds his gun, the way he looks at her, flat eyes blandly unimpressed in his agnostic review of her past the firearm she has pointed back at him. A mask can only hide so much, and she's not wearing one at all.
"What do you want?"
"I'm taking her to St. Luke's, I don't have time to give you my number, if you need to contact me, stop at Panucci's Pizza and ask for Magnes Varlane's number." Magnes doesn't wait for her to respond, he just darts into the air, in the direction of St. Luke's. "I'll come back for you!" Because leaving a blind woman on a roof is probably not cool.
What did she want? She wanted to chase him. Keeping one hand on her pistol, level, and her eyes fixed, the other hand drops slowly to her thigh; long fingers run over the slick of blood left as Ashley's chest gave out from the inside. They lift at him, fingertips red. "You woul'b'surprised how much effort tha'it takes t'get blood out, Emile."
"Care t'foot m'cleaning bill…?" Huruma's smooth voice vibrates off of the shorter man even from this distance, pouring into his ears; her lips curl around the end of her red-tipped ring finger, the tip of her tongue left to trail over the rest as her mouth moves away from them.
Magnes' words are something like a muffled wash over her ears as she stops retching just long enough to notice the drizzled trail of blood on the rooftop and the fact that Magnes and Ashley's corpse are gone. The young girl drops to her knees now, raking her fingers up through her hair as she hunches forward and chokes out a ragged sob. A sharp sniffle is drawn back through her nostrils, and the moments of fear that ebbed through her beneath the Pinehearst building start coming back. There's no miracle power of Gabriel's left to raise Ashley from the dead like Eileen, there's no gun-toting sociopath to drive her home and engage her in conversation to smooth her nerves. Right now there's no one to rely on but herself.
Exhaling a shuddering, fearful breath, Colette starts to get up on wobbly legs. I'll be back for you. The notion does not sit well with her, and Colette knows what she needs to do. She needs to get the hell off this roof before Magnes Varlane gets back. To that end, she forces on e shaky foot in front of the other. Her stomach is in knots, her eyes are puffy from crying, voice hoarse from screaming.
She just has to get down to street level and away. The sudden rippling distortion of a heat mirage swallows her away from sight, leaving nothing but the stain of her dinner on the roof and Ashley's dark blood to indicate anything was the matter. She'll berate herself about forgetting her phone. For now, all she wants to forget about is the sight of Ashley's rent ribcage as she makes her way across the roof, searching for a fire escape and the strength of will to make it home.
She can cry later.
"Little hydrogen peroxide and water'll take that right out." Confident in a method he's obviously had experience enough to see some success in, Danko shifts his stance a little wider. Even at a distance he has to lift his hollow eyes to match hers, jaw tilted at an angle that almost makes this standoff seem fair. So long as she doesn't come any closer.
"So far I'm saving you the expense of having to get a couple've holes patched over in addition to everything else. Unless you can think of a good reason for me to keep it up," he trails off, skull tipping into a gentle tilt in tandem with a lift at his brows, "I'd get the hell out of here."
Huruma's skull tilts with his, a perfectly mimicked cant. "You woul'think it so easy." She informs him, her answer unspecific as the tip of her gun's barrel aims tentatively towards his boots, but not entirely. A gesture that she's willing to pack it away if he does.
"You feel so cold. It is refreshing." Another smile, this time on a sculpted face littered with mock pleasure.
"Well I'm glad you're refreshed." The cant of Danko's brows makes the subtle transition from tolerant to patronizing in a shift measured out in single degrees. A more apparent jerk of his chin invites another masked man up out of the shadows at Huruma's back.
He's taller and broader, boot treads heavier beneath the swing of a robust black case in one hand and a compact assault rifle in the other on his way over to the van. The side door slides open at the behest of someone still inside and the pair of them get to packing shit up while Danko pushes his gun back down into its holster.
"…Bette'than New York City tap water, I assure you." Huruma even sounds assuring, hand silently flicking her gun back into idle order and tucking it back into the holster her her coat. She makes no moves as the man behind her passes on by towards the van, standing as still as a statue. Sirens peel about still, wailing unhappily through the night. "Adeus, Emile." And in the direction that Huruma chased him down, she steps backwards, carefully sidling into the dark.
"…See you around, Huruma."
Depressingly casual now that it's been established that nobody else is going to get extra airholes punched in them tonight, Danko adjusts the sit of his holster as he steps backwards after the black of the van. He doesn't actually turn his back on her until he's nearly at the back bumper, but once he does, there are no nervous glances to see what she's up to. He opens the driver's side door and slides himself into the front seat without a word, mask dragged off in time for him to catch one last glimpse of her in the rearview mirror before he guns the engine.
Not a bad take for just the one night.