[...that wasn't ominous at all.]
Melantha ArgyrisToday is another day off, and even though [i]important things[/i] happened last night and Erich looked particularly haunted after what they witnessed, Melantha left the tinyhouse alone. She told both of them that she just needed to get out. There are only so many books to read, so much to do, and Melantha itches sometimes with energy and wandering thoughts. So she left, taking Erich's truck and driving it out to Golden.
Not that she told them why she was going to Golden. It happens to be Parents & Family Weekend, which was a nice enough 'cover' for her to just walk around, not registered, not a parent or a family member, but look around. She went with tours that were full. There is, well after dark, still some mud on the ends of her jeans from the Edgar Mine Tour. She sat in a lecture about Chemistry and Geochemistry with Yongan Yang. She toured the Geology Museum and participated in a visual simultation of the reservoir. She walked the Geology Trail. She did more today than most people who are actually visiting their kids.
And now she is leaving the sweets shop on Washington Ave next to the Jimmy John's and across from the Blue Canyon, carrying a hand-packed quart of vanilla ice cream and a bag of mixed candies with shiny, crinkly wrappers because she thinks Charlotte will like the shiny, crinkly wrappers and the way you can see through the cellophane and the way you can't see through the foil and because Erich thinks he's boring and likes vanilla.
Outside, her coat all buttoned up, she starts trudging towards where she parked Erich's truck.
Calden WhiteComing out of the Blue Canyon -- right about when Melantha is heading back to Erich's truck with her sugary loot, in fact -- is the purveyor of some of the finest beef in the state. Sadly, such a superlative doesn't confer much in the way of star status; but then, Calden is hardly the type to care for such things. He's a fairly reserved man in many ways. He isn't standoffish or cold by any stretch of the imagination, but he keeps to himself. He listens to audiobooks on his long drives up and down the state. He's slowly but surely spoiling one of his cattledogs into a pet. Given the choice between a night by a fireside with a few friends, or perhaps only one, and some sort of wild hundred-person party drenched in alcohol, he'd pick the former any day of the week.
And, in fact, when he spots Melantha -- recognizes her vaguely from some gathering or meeting or hoedown or other -- he almost doesn't call out to her. Waffles for a moment, wondering if a girl nearly twenty years his junior who hangs out with wolves just as young would really want to be seen talking to some thirty-something cattleman in boots.
Good manners win out in the end. He does call out: "Miss!" And if she turns, if she looks at him, Calden raises a gloved hand in a wave.
Melantha ArgyrisPerhaps he has seen her, and if he has, he probably has not spoken to her, or had a drink with her, or become friends with her. But seeing her is enough, even once or twice, even peripherally. Walking through a restaurant was enough to make a Silver Fang suddenly go stiff and alert, watching her, suddenly and overwhelmingly protective of her. Extending one heeled foot out of a limousine was enough to make a Shadow Lord notice her and resent her a little for not -- in that moment, in her false self -- living up to the glory and wonder of her blood.
Calden will have no such reactions to her. He cannot look at her and know, instantly, what tribe she belongs to, but he could probably gues from that thick, dark hair, those luminous eyes, that olive skin that is somewhat golden even in the middle of autumn. There is just something about her that stands out, something that draws attention,
even if when he calls out to her, she jerks her head around, her kneejerk reaction one of defensiveness, one of looking a bit doe-in-the-headlights as a survival mechanism. She stares at Calden, then her shoulders relax a bit and she lifts her hand to give him a slight wave as well. She doesn't cross the street, though, since it's not her turn: the lights are against her, so she looks at him from the corner.
"I think I know you!" she calls back.
Calden White"You do!"
They're calling at each other across a street. They draw some curious stares, but -- it's a Saturday night, it's a lively area of a lively town that's a lively blend of upscale and college funk. No one thinks much of it.
Calden, for his part, doesn't obey traffic signals quite so assiduously. After a glance both ways to ensure traffic is light, he jogs across the street, coming up on the curb a good six feet or so from Melantha. No closer than that. He saw the way her head came around, the way her shoulders moved when he called. Defensiveness. Wariness. It's not unusual, sadly, in the kin to wolves -- for any number of reasons.
"Well," he amends with a slightly crooked smile, "loosely speaking, you know me. Calden White. I'm affiliated with 1999 Broadway and Roxborough."
Melantha ArgyrisWhen Calden jogs over, Melantha decides to just wait. She tips her head as she looks at him, something animalistic and primitive in the gesture, in the very air around her. It seems so odd to see her there with a bag from a sweets shop, a big long coat, thick mittens on her hands and a simple striped beanie on her head to keep it warm.
"Oh," she says, and that visible reaction grows a little more visible.
How. Does she act. Around men. Not trying to play stupid, not being cute, not making them want to protect her, not being Celia or Maria or any of them but just Melantha, who is not used to being around any men who are not Black Furies or one of her best friends. She blinks at him, and then holds the bag out to him.
"Do you want a piece of candy?"
Calden WhiteThere is a faint awkwardness in the air around Melantha. It seems a little at-odds with her: her remarkable eyes, her air of timeless primality. She holds the bag out. Calden blinks at it, then at her, then laughs.
"I would love a piece of candy," he says, the laugh folding on itself: a smile now, warm. Crinkles at the corners of his eyes. No hat for him today; not even a Stetson. A shearling jacket, though, and jeans, and boots, lived in and well-worn. A sturdy buckskin gloves that he strips off to reach into Melantha's bag. He rummages past the cold ice cream, picks out one of the clear-wrapped candies.
"Thank you," he says, lifting the piece in a little salute. "I'm sorry, I don't recall your name."
Melantha ArgyrisHer kneejerk response is to tell the tall, handsome, successful man some other name. Her kneejerk response is to wrap him around her finger one way or the other: if not with lust than protection. Even the married and attached ones, even the decent ones, don't mind sort of adopting young women who need help in the big, bad world. Her kneejerk response is to make sure the way is paved smoothly for the long game, the slow knife, laying a foundation for inevitable destruction... or at least usefulness from him.
She blinks again. "Uh. Melantha. Melantha Argyris." A beat. Let's swing pendulum-crazy to the other end of the spectrum: "I'm Greek. I'm in this pack called Baklava Republik with my friends Charlotte and Erich. Like really in their pack. With a rite."
Melantha tries to think of what comes next, even though she doesn't know. RIGHT. HIS NAME. DERP. "What about you?"
Melantha Argyris[remove the caps part about DERPing!]
Calden WhiteCalden is, in fact, a decent one. A decent man. A decent human being. A kind person, with a generous heart. It would be so easy to wrap him around her finger. Maybe not with lust, but certainly: with her youth, her inexperience, her fragility, her need to be helped and guided and protected. The illusions thereof, anyway. Back in the day, Melantha -- Celia, Maria, Emma, Nadia, whatever her name might have been -- could have closed the trap by the end of the night. Done deal. Sealed fate.
That was then. This is now. She
doesn't know what to do now. How to interact. What to say. So she opens her mouth and absolute absurdity comes out: way too much info for a first meeting like this. She can tell: Calden is unwrapping that bit of candy, and he is looking at her with this puzzled sort of smile, trying to process what she's telling him.
Greek. Pack. Baklava Republik. Charlotte and Erich. REALLY in the pack. Rite!
What about him?
The silence stretches just a beat too long. Then: "I'm a rancher," he says, smoothly and amicably closing that gap in their conversation. "I live up north, near the state line. Charlotte, did you say? Wouldn't happen to be a Charlotte of the royal tribe, would it?"
Melantha ArgyrisHe is a rancher. She forgot: "I wait tables." Which is not the same thing as identifying as a waitress or a server. She is neither of those things. She does wait tables, though. She quiets down after that, because he's still saying things after that, and she doesn't want to interrupt him.
Charlotte of the royal tribe. Melantha quirks a bit at that. That may be true, and she can't really argue with it. She just doesn't think of Charlotte like that. Best friend EVARRR, a sparrow-dinosaur, talen genius.
So she says: "Yeah. Do you know Charlotte, too?"
Calden WhiteCalden shakes his head. "No. My -- " the term is new enough that there's still a little hitch, a delicious, tiny tingle in the soles of his feet and the axis of his spine when he says it, " -- girlfriend does, though. She's got a lot of good things to say about Charlotte.
"Anyway -- I didn't mean to keep you. Do you need to get somewhere before that ice cream melts?"
Melantha ArgyrisMelantha just stares at him for a moment. Which she realizes may be rude, and she's not sure if she should stop just because of that or not. At least she doesn't speak slowly when she says: "It's freezing outside. It'll take a long time to melt. I am driving back to Evergreen, though. I was just going to put it in the bed of the truck, though, so it's not exposed to the heater."
She sticks her tongue into her cheek for a moment, something she would never have normally done, but it feels kinda funny and so she does it, childlike.
"Your girlfriend is lucky if Charlotte is her friend, too," she says, unabashedly. "Charlotte's pretty much a genius, and she's very kind and a total badass."
Calden WhiteThat brings another smile. "Well. My girlfriend," oh, that word again. His smile widens, "is brilliant, kind, and a badass as well. So it seems our respective friends are in good company together.
"Her name is Avery," he adds. "Avery Chase. I'd show you a picture, but -- I don't actually have one." His brow furrows over a smile. "Thanks for reminding me. I'll have to ask for one.
"Now, since you're not in a hurry to go home with your ice cream -- how do you feel about grabbing a cup of coffee with me? Just so we can continue this conversation somewhere other than a sidewalk."
Melantha ArgyrisShe blinks at that. That part is still habit: blink a lot! It makes her look so lost at times, so much dumber or more nervous than she is, even when some of that nervousness and awkwardness is genuine. But she also has a keenness to her eyes, a sharpness, that she cannot entirely disguise.
Well she can. But she's not trying.
"I am okay without seeing a picture of her. I'm glad you like her and... stuff." Which makes her brow furrow. She actually doesn't care that much about what he thinks of his girlfriend, does she? Well, it's kind of adorable that he's so eee about her and it's nice that he says she's brilliant and a badass. And apparently she and Charlotte like each other. Okay. So actually she is kinda glad that he likes his girlfriend and stuff.
Melantha shakes her head a little to clear it when she's done processing that. Quickly, actually: her brain is rapid with calculations, even emotional ones.
"That'd be good. It's really cold. But can we walk to the truck first? I want to stash the bag in the back so it doesn't melt inside somewhere."
Calden WhiteCalden laughs a little under his breath. Had he been gushing? He supposes he has. The conversation is a little awkward, a little stilted. Not in a terrible way, though. And it's always nice, he thinks, to meet someone else like him.
"Yeah, of course." He steps back a little, falls into place beside her. "Oh," as he sees where she's heading, "you're actually parked right next to me."
And then,
as though someone hit a switch,
the street goes dark.
Melantha ArgyrisShe's heading to the giant truck that is bright yellow with black racing stripes. She called it 'the truck' but it certainly doesn't look like something she'd drive. She looks, from her slightly muddy-hemmed jeans and her sneakers and her shin-length down-filled coat and her beanie and mittens, like she should be driving something sort of squat and several years old and with the best gas mileage you can get on something that old. Or a truck that rattles and is perpetually dirty.
Nope: a bright yellow truck. With goddamn racing stripes.
"Oh, so are you the Volkswagen or the --"
the light goes dark. Melantha doesn't even seem bothered; she just keeps walking, shaking her head: Weaver bullshit, that's what that is.
Calden WhiteWell. Yes. That truck does not look like something Melantha would drive. It doesn't look like something anyone sane and adult would drive, but then it could be argued that a werewolf born to a full moon who lives in a tinyhouse is most decidedly neither sane nor fully adult. So: Erich drives that truck. And when Melantha or Charlotte need to go somewhere, they drive it too.
Calden's eyebrows may have hitched up a little on sight. But he's too well-mannered to say anything of it, so he answers her: "The Silverado, yes. I'm not really a Beetle type, I think -- "
and the lights go dark. Melantha just keeps walking. Calden is a little more bothered, turning to look down the street and up it to see where the darkness ends.
But it doesn't end. The entire town seems to have blacked out. The stars overhead are suddenly, dazzlingly bright. No moon tonight. There isn't a single light in a single window; not a speck of glow, not even a flashlight beam. You'd expect customers to come milling out of the coffeehouses, the bar-and-grills, the Jimmy John's -- but no.
It's just them. On the street. In the darkness.
And something else. Something in the shadows, breathing slow and even and deep. Closing in.
Calden sets his hand on Melantha's shoulder. He is a shadow in the dim starlight. He keeps his voice low: "Let's go to my truck. I keep a rifle on the rack and a handgun in the glove compartment. We're going to try to drive out of here, but I need to know: can you shoot if you have to?"
Melantha Argyris[I'm just gonna do this one thing: dex + athletics]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Melantha ArgyrisHand on her shoulder. Melantha moves like you wouldn't expect someone of her size to move, someone of her doe-eyed blinking awkwardness. She ducks, turns, backs up, the motion a smooth spiral, ending with her just out of his arm's reach and facing him. There's a --
completely different young woman looking at him. Those eyes, the color of a summer day descending swiftly into a storm, no longer promise simply a gentle rainfall but possibly something much more devastating. There's a seriousness to her lips. No glower, no glare, no scowl or bared teeth, but a steadiness that only serves to look like a warning.
And the way her body is angled, slightly sideways. She gives him a narrower target, a her vital organs hidden, her jaw down to protect her throat, one arm up, and though it's clear she would have little to no chance of doing anything but annoying him a little if they were to engage in some kind of physical conflict, she looks like she would go down fighting. Fighting, kicking, elbowing, biting, relentless, unbreakable to the very end.
It barely even warrants noting that the bag with the ice cream and candy isn't in her hand anymore, because she might need both of those hands to deal with the somewhat stranger who just put his hand on her shoulder after the entire street went dark.
But: he sees the arm in front of her side slowly move as her hand rolls into a fist with his words. She breathes, exhaling slowly, then eases back a bit. "As long as you walk a head of me and I am not getting in your truck until I have the handgun and I know it's loaded."
Calden WhiteIt hardly needs to be said, but: Calden was not expecting that. His hand freezes as Melantha slips out from under it. It stays there, forgotten, mid-air, as he looks at her. Even in the darkness he looks -- puzzled. Not at her reaction, per se. Not that.
"I'm on your side," he says. Softly, as though speaking to something skittish and wild and liable to bite. "I don't blame you if you don't want to believe that without proof, but you'll get that proof soon enough. I can't help but wonder what's made you so wary, though."
Maybe that's a stupid question. Just look at the world they live in. Still: he is still another moment. Then Calden begins to walk toward his truck. Quickly.
"Come on," he says. Ahead of them, the lights of his truck blink as the doors unlock. Even those lights seem
somehow
dimmed.
Melantha ArgyrisMaybe that's a stupid question. Maybe Melantha, used to the sort of men she's used to, hears that and her jaw hardens a bit, her memories of so. very. many little manipulative comments about how women are supposed to be, the gaslighting, the heartfelt disappointment from men who are just so hurt and lost and bewildered whenever women don't smile at them, don't want them, are wary of them as though men aren't one of the leading causes of women's suffering worldwide, as though somehow she must just be silly or wrong or damaged or broken to be wary,
and maybe he sees that roar of anger in her eyes when he mentions that, the rising of something molten,
burning,
from deep within her core.
She swallows, and eases back, watching him go back, turning with him, but following him to the truck, which is much nicer than Erich's truck but she's not really thinking about that right now. She does remember to get the ice cream and candy though, dropping it in the bed of Erich's truck on her way to Calden's, which isn't far.
Also she takes off her mittens, glancing behind them both. "Do you hear that, by the way?"
Calden White"Yes," Calden doesn't look back; he doesn't slow. And for once, he doesn't open the passenger-side door for a lady. He goes directly to his door, yanks it open --
(behind them. behind them, and slightly to the right: that deep, steady breathing, closer, ever closer, maybe a block away at most now.)
-- and climbs in. As Melantha gets in the other side, if she gets in, he pops open the glove compartment and takes out the handgun. Holds it butt-first to her.
"It's a semi-automatic," he tells her. Slams his door. Starts the engine. "Fifteen rounds in a clip. Spare clip in the glove compartment, but that's the only one. There's a rifle racked on the roof. It packs a hell of a lot bigger punch, but the recoil will break your collarbone if you're not braced right.
"I'll drive." He pulls away from the curb. Swings a sharp left. "If you have to -- you shoot."
Dark streets unfold ahead of them. No lights, no people. No explanation either. Just mile upon mile of blackness. No visible end to it. No border, past which the world is normal again, populated again, lit again.
And that breathing. Impossibly, it seems to follow them. Permeates the insulated shell of the truck cab. Haunts them, even as the engine guns and the tires churn and the truck lurches away from the Blue Canyon and its neighbors.
Calden White[CORREKSHUN:
" -- and climbs in. Pops open the glove compartment and takes out the handgun. Holds it butt-first to Melantha."]
Melantha ArgyrisA small part of Calden's soul must die every time he fails to open a door for a lady. Melantha, for what it's worth, doesn't notice. She follows him to the driver's side anyway, resolute: she was not kidding about refusing to get into that truck with him. The Wyrm has a lot of tricks, and she has heard horror stories of people lured by villains that they thought were allies, that wore the faces and spoke in the voices of friends. And this is not a friend or ally: she barely knows him.
So he gets to the car and he climbs in, reaching across to the glovebox to take out the handgun, passing it to her. She takes the grip with -- well, competence if not familiarity, and then keeps one eye on him and one eye on the gun (not literally) as she checks to make sure that it's loaded. When she's satisfied, Melantha points it downward, walking around the truck to the passenger seat and climbing in. She keeps her beanie on.
"Sometimes I blink when I fire," she admits to him, as blurted as anything else she's said tonight. "I know you're not supposed to but it's really hard not to."
Awesome. She shoots with her eyes closed sometimes. This will go swimmingly.
Melantha decides to buckle up as Calden drives, after that sharp left. She's tense: she doesn't want to leave. She knows they should leave. She feels a sickly cold wet feeling from that breathing, and she wants to kill it, and yet this guy is driving them away from it. Or trying.
"I don't think we're getting away she tells him, in case he can't hear it.
Calden WhiteCalden doesn't roll his eyes. He doesn't groan with disappointment and horror that she shoots with her eyes shut. He flicks her a glance, and then --
"It helps if you exhale, slow and even, before you squeeze the trigger. And always squeeze. Don't yank."
Another glance. Longer. Eye contact, brief but steady. He is earnest:
"You'll be fine."
And then he drives. And that noise, that deep, harsh breathing: it follows them, it haunts them, sometimes they think they're leaving it behind but always, always it comes back. Every time a little closer. Every time a little louder.
We're not getting away, Melantha says.
"I know," Calden replies, tight-voiced. "But we have to try. If nothing else, we can't have whatever that thing is hunting us down in the middle of town."
Melantha ArgyrisMelantha is relatively implacable even when she does want comfort and reassurance. Everything in her rebels against someone patting her head or giving her a gentle squeeze and telling her she'll be fine and this is how she'll be fine. These days that instinct is stronger than ever, at least when she's not dealing with the two people she knows the best and trusts the most. It has caused some of her most tense moments at her job, her spine turning to iron as she tries not to bite people's heads off,
BACK OFF,
as she misses, once again, the steady reliance on one's-own-strength and the trust that everyone else is just-as-strong-as-they-need-to-be that she grew up with, went home to, lived in for most of her life. It is not easy to stop herself from yelling at Calden, who is reacting the only way that makes sense to him to this odd young woman. She feels a pang of self-rejection, a stab of fear that she's always going to go around acting a little bit socially hobbled because everything in her life was a lie and everything that wasn't a lie is gone and no one, nothing in the world is quite like those things she had that weren't lies.
She looks away from his long glance, and she wasn't meeting his eyes anyway.
"I know how to fire," is all she says, muttered, defensive, but so very quiet. Her mind, a running chorus: she knows squeeze, don't yank. She knows. Sometimes she just blinks. That doesn't mean she's dumb. She doesn't need him patting her hand or her head. She doesn't need his help at all she doesn't need his protection she doesn't want his reassurance or his strength, she just wants her own.
But how would he know anything about her? Girls like her in the world he knows are not really like her at all.
--
The breathing makes her want to scratch the back of her neck until it bleeds. She wants to shower. She wants to crawl out of her skin. She wants to kill it.
Instead she exhales. "I swear, if you're just some shapeshifting or surgically-altered fomor or something who is luring me away from other people so you can do whatever to me, I'm gonna fight you, and Erich and Charlotte are going to like. I don't know. Set you on fire and rip you apart at the same time." Her eyes skate over to him, wary but not cold, serious but not angry. "I'm not easy prey."
That, adamant. That,
whether he's her ally or not.
Calden WhiteGod, she's implacable. She's wary, she's tense as a wire, she doesn't trust him a single bit and there's a part of Calden that wants to get angry. Wants to stop the car and turn around and shout at her that
HE IS TRYING TO HELP HER,
goddammit, so stop pointing the figurative gun at him when there's some monster out of myth hot on their heels.
He doesn't, though. They have bigger fish to fry than that. He doesn't dare stop the truck, even though he knows it's not doing any good, even though that noise, that sound, that breathing, it keeps following them. It dogs them, it permeates the truck, the insulation, their ears, their skulls, it bores right down the backs of their necks and it's always there, always there, always there,
closing in.
"I know you're not," Calden says. His teeth have clenched; he barely even realizes it. They're out of downtown Golden now. Heading out toward the uninhabited stretches, the golf courses and country clubs abandoned by night. The curving, scenic byways that wind down from the foothills into Denver: "Neither of us are."
--
And just like that
the engine cuts out. The car loses power. Loses its steering assist; becomes a dead whale in the water, heavy, lurching with momentum, almost impossible to steer. Melantha can see Calden's knuckles white on the wheel, can see him pumping the brakes, can see him pulling up on the emergency brake and hauling the wheel around and skidding off the edge of the road, missing a tree by a yard, shuddering, bumping, rocking to a stop on the shoulder, turned one-eighty from where they were going.
Silence. Stillness. And then: eyes glowing baleful red in the darkness,
eyes that belong to a body, a vaguely lupine thing of claws and teeth and ghostly-pale fur, alight with its own phantom, haloing light. It is breathing. It is grinning, baring row upon row of teeth.
Leaping. Pouncing onto the hood of the Chevrolet, crushing metal with its weight. The windshield cracks one side to the other. The creature draws a paw back, smashes it into the glass. Batters it to a spiderweb of cracks; will punch through it in another second.
Calden grabs for the rifle on the roof.
Melantha ArgyrisThat makes her eyes skip over to him. Not wary so much as curious, not intrigued as much as suddenly a bit more attentive.
The engine cuts and Melantha gasps a bit. She can't see but can hear him pumping the breaks. She is glad she buckled in when he veers off the road, spun around, and yet all the same when the car stops she scrambles to unbuckle, to make sure she's free to move. She sees the eyes and gasps again, almost yelps, turning the safety off the gun and then
not gasping, nor yelping, but letting out a shriek as the thing leaps, punching at the glass not nearly far enough away from her face.
Melantha has a gun in her hand. She hasn't forgotten. She braces her arm, aiming the muzzle at the thing. She really hopes nothing richochets and like. Kills one of them instaed of that thing.
Melantha Argyris[+7!]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )
Calden White[Calden +5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )
Calden White[TING +8]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )
Calden WhiteTing - Calden - Melanfa!
Melantha Argyris[eep!
BLAM! just one shot.]
Calden White[Calden: also BLAM. wun shot.
Ting: 1. Break window! 2. GRAB + THROW MELANFA OWT.]
Calden White[er. 2 is effektivlee a rage akshun]
Calden WhiteTing: BREAKS WINDOW.
Calden: BLAM, point blank range. Moving targets spec doesn't really apply in this case. WHY DID I PICK THAT SPEC IT IS STUPID.
Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 5 )
Calden White[dam +4]
Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 7 )
Calden White[ting: soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
Melantha Argyris[1. Point blank!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN4 (3, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Melantha Argyris[Damage! +5]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Calden White[soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 6, 6) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[2. GRAB AN TROW. str+ath resisted by ... dex+ath or str+ath, whichever higher.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
Melantha Argyris[str + ath! HALP ME VOLCANO]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Calden WhiteIn the face of such strength, such supernatural might, there is no such thing as shatter-proof.
The glass shatters. Shards scatter every which way, glinting in what little light there is. Calden clawing for his weapon: yanking it down from the roof. The rifle in his hand, the grip, the trigger. He grabs for the release-catch on his seat. Drops back, drops flat, gives himself the room he needs to swing that barrel around,
thinks briefly, wildly, brilliantly of Avery Chase and how angry he was going to be if he never sees her again,
and fires.
The report is deafening. The recoil slams into his shoulder. He isn't well-braced. It leaves a bruise. It leaves a lot worse than that in the ghost-flamed creature clawing through his windshield, though: tears a blazing white hole in the thing. An instant later Melantha,
who was Celia de Luca not very long ago, a giggling pouting thing that teetered about on high heels and short skirts, tight sweaters, cute jackets,
levels her own gun. Her borrowed gun, anyway. Levels it, squeezes the trigger, slams a bullet home in the creature's shoulder.
It shrieks outrage. It makes a sound not wholly of this world, knife-piercing and thin, on the painful edge of audible. It reaches through the glass, its claws catch at Melantha, tear her coat, spill feather and down into the truck cabin, but: she grabs that paw, she shoves it back, she twists away from it. Her gun is still in her hand, but before she can point it
that thing lunges in again. This time it uses its teeth.
Melantha ArgyrisMelantha is ready, and Melantha fires, and she doesn't blink. She isn't thinking of anything at all except breathing, because breathing is the first necessity of survival. She watches the thing jerk back at the arm with grim satisfaction, even as blood patters over her hands and cheek and jacket. When it comes for her, she takes her left hand and calls on strength she has only asked for when moving something heavy at work and not wanting help, or when working on the house and not wanting to get so tired. But she has called on it before, and calls on it now, letting it come up roaring and world-altering and explosive,
shoving that thing back with an audible, shouted "NO." before she pulls back to brace her right arm again.
[Shoot it again! 3RB this time!]
Calden White[Calden: 1a. shoot it again! b. try to slam it back w/ butt of rifle!
Ting: 1. BITE CALDEN. 2. BITE MELANFA. NOMNOM.]
Calden White[Ting 1.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[Dam 1!]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 10) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[soak! diff8]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 4, 4, 7) ( fail )
Calden White[SONUVABITCH. 1a. SHOOT IT. -1 die after split.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Calden White[dam +1]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Calden White[soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Calden White[b. FUCKER. NO DICE LEFT.]
Melantha Argyris[BLAM BLAM BLAM]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 6 ) [WP]
Melantha Argyris[SHOULD HAVE ROLLED THIS BEFORE.
WILLPOWER! before second shot, so at -1 WP instead of -2
+1 diff for distress!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Melantha Argyris[Damage! +5]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 5 )
Calden White[soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[2. Bite Melantha!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Calden White[damage +1!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Melantha Argyris[Soak! +1 armor]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )
Melantha Argyris[Rolling WP again]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
Calden WhiteSnapping teeth. A crushing grip on the Stagsman: an audible crack of bone, a bitten-back shout of pain, his arm too mangled to attempt to batter the creature back. For Melantha, a lighter price -- a scratch through her thick winter clothing, no more.
And their guns: muzzle-flash flaring in their hands, punching one, two-three-four bullets into the thing. It slides back a precious few inches. Shakes its head once, hard.
Lunges again. Murder in its eyes.
Calden WhiteCalden: +4!
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )
Melantha Argyris[Init! + 7]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Calden WhiteTing! +7
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Calden White[ting - melanfa - calden.
Calden:
1. GRIT TEETH, SHOOT THE DAMN THING. IN THE HED. +2 diff for targeted, +.... let's say +2 damage for critical shot, if successful.]
Melantha ArgyrisShe is pretty sure she's going to throw up or pass out. The burst of blood from the thing did not bother her; when it bit into Calden, savagely, Melantha felt the blood drain out of her face a half-second before she just started shooting, squeezing the trigger over and over for what felt like forever.
When it bites her, she feels woozy, and not from blood loss, but the sight of the blood, the pervasive smell of it that is so sudden and all-encompassing for her, the knowledge of it, the torn skin, the blood running out, the wrongness of that, and her head swims for a moment before she clears it. Forces it to clear, so she doesn't die or something.
"NO!" she yells again, a higher shriek this time, with greater rage but somehow less force, with a sort of mad defiance instead of steely resolve.
[3RB again! that worked good!]
Calden White[Ting:
1. Bite Calden: targeted for other arm! +2 diff. Every dmg after soak decreases firearms dice pool by 1.
2. Chomp Melantha!]
Calden White1. CHOMP.
Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (4, 6, 8, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Calden White[Dam +3!]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 5 )
Calden White[soak!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )
Calden White1. Oops. WIF -1 DMG MOD.
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Calden White[Dam +1]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Melantha Argyris[oh god not more blood -2]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
Melantha Argyris[3RB!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Melantha Argyris[Damage +5]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Calden White[soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[Calden: SHOOT IT WIF MAI WUN REMAINING DIE. +WP. +2diff for called shot.]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Calden White[dam +2 +2]
Dice: 12 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )
Calden White[soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[Ting 2. Bite Melanfa!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 3, 10) ( success x 1 )
Calden White[Dam!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Melantha Argyris[ONOZ]
Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 1 )
Melantha Argyris[yup, more blood. -3]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (2, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Melantha Argyris[FOUR FOR YOU, MELANTHA. YOU GO, MELANTHA.]
Calden WhiteThe next lunge,
the next bite,
mangles Calden's arm so badly he can barely hold his rifle. It's very nearly willpower alone that lets him raise it. Brace it on the steering wheel. Aim it.
Fire.
Blows a chunk off the thing's head. Blows an ear off, a wad of flesh; leaves it bleeding streaks and trails of blinding white. It retaliates: tears through Melantha's coat, her puffer jacket and her hoodie and god knows what else she's bundled on against the cold. Tears into her flesh, that pure pure blood of hers. Hisses: delight and hunger, both.
Calden White[Ting! +6 now]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )
Calden White[Calden: um. +0. LOL]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Melantha Argyris[+5]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( fail )
Melantha ArgyrisShe is not thinking.
About Charlotte, about Erich. About school or the tinyhouse, never to be ascended to, never to be returned to. She is not thinking about her mother who she barely remembers or her father and brothers who stayed and died or her brothers who left her behind for another tribe. She is not thinking about love or longing, about peace or the future. She does not think about Damaris or the commune or the sisters or Duck or anything, anything, anything but
staying alive.
There is no pleasure in this, and no satisfaction left for her -- grim or otherwise. Everything is narrow to what helps her stay alive and what does not. That clarity is black and white but it is, for her needs, clarity. Her own weaknesses will not help her stay alive.
She refuses them.
[3
R
B
!!!]
Calden White[Calden: 1. fuck it. SHOOT THE DAMN THING. IN THE GODDAMN HED. AGAIN.
Ting: 1. drag-and-throw Calden out of car! 2. SAME THING WITH MELANTHA.]
Calden White1. Drag and throw! str+ath -2 (dmg)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 5, 9) ( success x 1 )
Calden White[resist! using str+ath pool, -5 (dmg)]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )
Calden White[SHOOT IT OMGBBQ]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( success x 1 ) [WP]
Calden White[dam+2]
Dice: 10 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[ARE YOU SHITTING ME KAHSEENO. soak!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )
Melantha Argyris[3RB!]
Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 ) [WP]
Melantha Argyris[+5]
Dice: 9 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 3, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )
Calden White[fail this, you motherfucker]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )
Calden WhiteCalden is thinking about them.
He's thinking about all of them: the people he would leave behind. His girlfriend -- his lover, his paramour, his lady, his Avery. He is thinking about the sunlight on her skin, the way she shakes back her hair; the laughter, how it wells up and spills out of her. He is thinking about his father, too, grouch that he is; and his brothers, and his cousins. He is thinking about Eva and Eva's little daughter who likes cowboy boots. He is thinking about that kin he met so recently,
who goes around looking for trouble like this,
who would probably consider it an honor to die just. like. this.
He is thinking that: he is thinking, I think I'm going to die here. He's thinking he should have saved a bullet for Melantha. He's thinking he has no time for that now, and he pulls the trigger again.
--
The bullet snaps the beast's head around. But it swings back. It leers, unscathed. It grabs for Calden,
who shoves its paw away with nerveless hands, grunting something that might have, in another life, been a NO. He's learning from Melantha, it seems.
--
Melantha.
Who raises that gun that isn't even hers. Who lines up her shot. Who steels her resolve -- what little remains of it.
Who pulls.
the.
trigger.
--
Luminous blood, shimmering white and auto-fluorescing, splatters across the hood of the truck. The beast's head snaps up and back. It arches, almost graceful. And then -- quite slowly -- it tumbles backward. Slides bonelessly off the hood. Hits the asphalt with a quiet thud.
Everything is quiet, then. Gradually, little by little, beat by beat of their racing hearts, light begins to fill the world around them. The streetlights. The pathlights of the golf course beside the road. The distant night-lights of the clubhouse, somewhere beyond the ninth hole.
Beside her, drenched in his own blood in the driver's seat, Calden breathes in pain-ragged pants. He is dazed, he is shivering, his somewhat less injured hand still gripping that rifle with what little strength he has left. His head lolls against the headrest. He stares glassily at Melantha. His eyes want to close, but he makes them
open again.
"Have to get out of here," he rasps. "Call someone."
Melantha ArgyrisIt dies. They live. And everything comes crashing back in, floodgates opened and waters surging, overwhelming, taking all that magma of hers and slowing, freezing it solid. She watches the thing slump backwards and slide off the hood and in a second she is scrambling for the door handle, shoving the door open even though everything hurts and there's blood everywhere and that cowboy with the rifle may very well be dying. She almost falls out of the truck, gun up, and she is shooting before she's in that thing's reach.
One shot. Then another. Then, stalking forward, she stands over it in her beanie and her frizzy hair and that long, now-scratched-open and blood-stained coat of hers, slamming three more bullets in rapid succession into that monster's head. Then there's a clicking as she pulls the trigger again, but the clip is empty. The thing flinched every time it is struck, but that's just physics. It is dead. It is limp. It doesn't get up again. Melantha's breath steams in the darkness. She stares at it. And she starts crying.
Hiccuping breaths that have no sound but a subtle gasp to them, she starts sobbing, tears in her eyes. Her respiration is ragged and uneven but it's at least there, and it's on the verge of panic, but she has just enough slivers of self-control left to come back around and climb back into the --
blood-soaked
truck.
This time she just shakes her head, letting out a whimper, taking a step back, shutting her eyes veryveryverytight because she can't stand this and yet there's Calden White, telling her that they have to get out of there, call someone, and he really looks like he's about to die or something, and she is standing there crying with her lips pressed together shaking her head like these things will make it all go away, and then she digs down, very far, and pulls up what's left. It isn't much. She can feel her reach scraping the bottom of the barrel of her resolve when she pulls up another draught, but there's enough.
Enough for her to open her eyes, in spite of the blood, and force herself to breathe again, and climb into her nightmare, pulling the door shut, letting the empty gun tumble recklessly to the floor of the truck. It's cold now, with the windshield broken. She kneels on the passenger seat, hunched over all of her own pains, looking down at Calden with that tear-stained but youthful, beautiful face, like she comes out of some other time, some lost mythology.
charlotte erich i'm not okay i'm in golden kinda outside of golden and i'm with someone named calden white he's kinfolk we got hunted by this thing and we're both really hurt well i'm really hurt but calden white is really really hurt and i am freaking out cuz i think he might die and i don't know how to stop it but please please please hurry please i'm freaking out
"I am," she tells him, whispered, even as her stream-of-consciousness panic is being offered up to Volcano.
oh also we killed it so we're not getting attacked anymore and i have another clip if something else comes but please just hurry okay
She does know enough that if there are bleeding wounds that are still bleeding, you have to apply pressure, so she looks for the biggest one on him and then presses her hands down on it, not mercifully or gently and she lets out this frightened, shaking little noise of near-panic when she feels fresh blood erupt beneath her palm but she is burning with the strength of her own nearly-depleted soul and she just holds, tight, keeping her eyes on Calden's.
"I'm calling my friends. I told you we're a pack. Like a real one with a rite and everything, and I can talk to them in my head. So I'm calling them and they're gonna come, I promise."
Melantha Argyris[BTW it was -1 WP to get in the truck and apply pressure]
Calden WhiteShe is calling.
He can't imagine how. He doesn't see a phone. He doesn't see a two-way radio. He doesn't even see a smoke signal, a Bat-signal... anything. But she says she's calling. And he believes her. He has nothing left but faith, after all.
She find a wound on him, the largest and bloodiest she can find. She presses on it. He
screams,
or he would if he could. As it is: he gives this strangled, airless sound. His hand grabs at her wrist, strength like a drowning man's, and for a moment she might think he'll tear her off, push her away, something, but:
no. His grip isn't so desperate after a moment. It is only firm. Strong, still, in spite of -- everything.
She hated it when he tried to offer her comfort earlier. She felt patronized, talked down to, lied to perhaps. He can't help it, though. This is in his nature, as much as bitter, unyielding survival seems to be in hers: he grips her forearm tight. He finds her eyes even as his vision threatens to grey out. He tells her with the last dregs of his strength:
"It'll be all right."
strong>Melantha ArgyrisShe looks at him with something between incredulity and white-hot anger.
"Yeah, because I'm going to stop you from bleeding to death and my friends are coming. Jesus." Melantha frowns at him, a little wrinkle between her brows, a tiny hint of strength returning to that tear-wet face of hers. "Just like... try to relax and rest and don't move too much," she says quietly, perhaps meaning his arm trying to grasp hers, which only spreads more blood around, and she thinks if he touches her skin with any more of his blood she's going to fly into a full-blown panic if she doesn't mercifully lose consciousness first. Even now, her brow feels strangely cold, her face a bit numb. And her hands are not working the way she wants them too. But they press anyway, holding tightly to that wound.
"Thank you for the gun," she whispers to him.
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