Re: Dresden Files: Caught in the Undertow

[Colesign]

Bartholomew Dee

Notgoodnotgoodnotgoodnotgood....

Bartholomew Dee freezes, then endeavors to put on a facade of calmness. Predators, body language, creating uncertainty.

With a measure of dignity, he pulls out his much abused hat, placing it again upon his head, then reverses his coat again.

No more smoke grenades. Of all the god-damned luck.

Bartholomew pulls out a deck of cards and begins doing a series of one-handed shuffles and flourishes, the routine of dexterity restoring a measure of calm to him.

"Your voice doesn't sound so good, 'Nicholas': seems like your throat's come down with a case of 'Evil-itis'. I've heard there's a prescription for that."

His eyes track back and forth, looking for some resource, something he can utilize to make a good escape.

[draxx]

Thomas
"Sanya, I don't think we're going to talk her out of this." He says, slow and polite. "But if you want to bash your head against a wall, well with any luck you'll figure something out." He walks vack to the door. "This isn't getting anywhere, and I'm not any help. When you're done, call me if you need help."

Fix
He gets up as well. He points to Dedire, then he shrugs his shoulders. Where are we going to keep her?

[Colesign]

Sanya

"Wait." Sanya says quietly, just as Thomas is about to walk out the door.

If he turns back, he sees Sanya with a big, wide Russian grin upon his face, stroking his chin and looking at him in a very, very discomforting manner.

"I've got an idea."

{See ooc}

[draxx]

Thomas

Thomas cracks his knuckles. Then he takes his cavalry sabre, and plants the tip on the ground. "I'm only going along with it because I don't have a better idea. Alright?" He says, but there is an almost boyish gleam in his eyes. This actually sounds fun.

Then it occurs to him he'll have to act very deeply in character. Lower his inhibitions, maybe kill, maybe do worse then kill. It'll almost be impossible to keep character if that does happen.

"Now make it look good. She's not stupid."

Fix

Your crazy. He mimes, but with a sigh gets to his feet. He's not the one taking the risks, he can hardly complain.

[Colesign]

Sanya

"No: she's not stupid. But from experience, I can tell that being Evil leaves you with certain blind spots. Our attempts to interrogate her, I admit, have been pretty clumsy so far. So if we do this right, she won't see it coming."

Sanya ponders the issue some more.

"I think I saw a small emergency in the back of Marcone's office. If we can get a spare suit, here's how we can play this..."

[draxx]

Thomas
"Lets not make this too complicated, all right?" He says. "Now, how are we going to explain my takedown?" He adds. "I mean, we could say it was the only way to keep you from hurting her, but I'm not sure she'll buy it."

[Colesign]

Sanya

"Well..." Sanya motions Thomas and the gang away from Deirdre, in case she woke up and began eavesdropping.

"I was thinking that you could blindside me and trap me in a chokehold until I became unconscious. You could then explain, if force to, that any subsequent attempt to kill me would delay the window of opportunity for the 'escape'. And if she wants you to steal 'Esperacchius'..."

He spreads his hands.

"Then go right ahead. As long as you don't use it in an Act of Despair, it'll be good."

His face become serious.

"LIke you say, we cannot plan for all contingencies. So, shall we get show on road?"

He holds out his hand.

[draxx]

Thomas
The White Court vampire stares. "No. Getting you into a chokehold is much to obvious, and it's actually easier to kill you then knocking you out. She'll know something's up, and she'll stop and kill you even if I don't. How about I injure you, then scamper. You can chase us too, if you want. Just don't actually hit me with that gun of yours, bullets hurt, you know?"

[Colesign]

Sanya

The knight nods. "Very well. I trust you on this. So, show on the road?"

He holds out his hand again.

[Colesign]

Sanya

As an afterthought, Sanya passes a writing pad and pen to Fix.

[AnimeKid]

Sartorius

The fighter holds back the growl that wants to escape his throat. He then reigns it back in as he restrains himself from just smacking the girl. However she was not a fighter so he would not do it. Even if the narrow staircase down would give him the sweet advantage to try and knock her out before that, blob thing could evaporate him. Ignoring the sweet whispering voices in his head he leads her into the fight club easily walking the the automatically parting fighters who seem to instinctively move away from their head of the pack. He then leads Ivy over to the cages. He didn't know what or who she was looking for but she was pushing her luck.

[industrious]

Ivy

The little girl absently waves her hand, and erects a ward around herself and one of the cages. A barely translucent hemisphere blocks Sartorius from seeing what is going on.

She stands in front of the cage, her voice calm and cool but quivering with undercurrents of rage and disappointment, betrayal and sorrow.

"Hello Kincaid."

Nicodemus

"How delightfully defiant of you."

The alley doesn't really offer much. Two dumpsters, some loose gravel. An empty bottle of Belgian beer.

Nicodemus begins to walk slowly towards Dee.

"I would tell you not to run, but I doubt you would take my advice."

[Colesign]

Bartholomew Dee

Before Nicodemus finishes enunciating the word 'Advice' in his smooth British accent, Bartholomew Dee takes off, running in the opposite direction.

[industrious]

Nicodemus

He tut-tuts, shaking his head as he does so.

"They always run. Always," he murmurs to himself.

Dee doesn't get five feet before he stumbles, something long and sinuous and cold, colder than Chicago winter, wrapping itself around his legs. It snakes upwards, coiling itself around the street magician, dragging him back to Nicodemus.

"Now, boy," he intones, icy rage coloring his speech. "You made a mockery of me. You eavesdropped on my presence. You meddle in affairs and worlds that you don't belong to. A minnow in a sea of sharks. Not even a minnow, little man. You don't even have that sort of talent."

The shadows jerk Dee upright, face to face with the Denarian. A roman gladius appears in his hand, and its tip rests against his throat.

"I see no reason why I should not kill you now."

A pause, and the blade presses deeper, pricks the skin. Nothing worse than a shaving cut. So far.

"Wait," he says to himself, chuckling.

The shadows withdraw from Dee, and Nicodemus presses something into the magician's palm. A coin.

"Amuse me, little man. Perform one of your parlor tricks. And if I am sufficiently pleased, I will let you walk free."

Spoiler:

[Colesign]

Bartholomew Dee

Nicodemus makes to press a coin into Bartholomew's hands.

Bound within living freaking shadows, Bartholomew Dee only has time to realize that the coin is similar to the coin Murphy freaked out over, meaning it's probably an artifact of doom of some kind.

Nononono...

As Nicodemus lets the coin go, Bartholomew's off hand, the hand holding the deck of cards, reaches out with honed reflexes.

And snatches the coin out of midair, it's tip sandwiched in-between the two halves of the card deck.

With a smooth, careful flourish, Bartholomew holds the deck and coin up to eye level, where Nicodemus can see it.

He does a quick flourish, and flips the top half of the deck over, so that the Denarian coin rests right on top of a Jack of Diamonds.

In a normal card illusion, Bartholomew would have held the deck slanted so that there was no way he could have peaked at the card. But under the circumstances, it's clear that he's not peeking. Really, desperately clear.

"Take a look at the card: memorize it carefully." Bartholomew says, his speech tones falling into the rhythmic patter of his trade, though still touched with hints of fear.

{Bear with me industrious: this is a real magic trick, and one of the most interesting ones I've actually performed in real life.

Minus the evil Demon Coin, of course.}

[industrious]

Nicodemus

"Very well."

He does so.

(Not sure what you want me to post to have him go along. But I'll still play it)

[Colesign]

Bartholomew Dee

Bartholomew Dee reaches his other hand into his pocket, said hand then emerging with a glove on it. With his other hand he flips the top half of the deck over again, sandwiching the tarnished coin in-between the deck. He tosses the deck over to his now-gloved hand, and catches the deck without any of the cards spilling.

He speaks carefully: "Now then Mr. Lionheart, assuming that's your name, would you be so good as to set this deck of cards on fire?"

[industrious]

Nicodemus

Taking out a book of matches, he strikes one, and drops it onto the deck.

[Cracklord]

Kincaid
Lately, life has not been kind to the Hellhound. He's face is swollen and puffy, a cheekbone is broken and an ear almost torn off. One eye is swollen shit, the other black. He's missing half his perfect straight teeth, and the other side of his mouth has tiny tips of teeth more at place on a shark then a man peeking through.
His leg has been broken, and reset fairly well, though it's slightly crooked, and will need to be broken again, then reset. And his skin is pale where it's not a mass of splotchy bruises. His hair is matted with blood and filth, and his clothes are torn.
He'd been assumed to be a homeless man on the brink of death, and been dragged here to die. He hadn't died, in fact he'd won his fight, and he was getting better. If you'd come four hours ago, you probably wouldn't recognize him.
"Hi kiddo." He says softly. "Glamorous life of an assassin here. Not due back for another four hours, you should be sleeping." They had something of a worked out way of managing things. One weekend to follow other jobs a month. One week off a year.

[draxx]

Fix
He loos at th pad. He looks up at Sanya's earnest expression. He looks at Thomas. He sighs. He goes and sits down in the corner. He writes 'I told you so'. Then he waits.

Thomas
"Well, lets get this show on the road." He says, stretching a bit to limber up. "I'll try not to stab you too much, but be careful. Accidents happen, alright?"

[Colesign]

Sanya

"Let's hope this works to a sufficient extent" Sanya murmurs.

He walks back into the safe room, Thomas presumably following. "We need to question Deirdre in a more intelligent fashion." He says to Thomas. "With Fix at Hospital, there's only two of us: how about good cop/bad cop? An old tactic but a classic one, eh?"

They'll continue in this vein until they're sure Deirdre's awake.

[Colesign]

Bartholomew Dee

The Cards burn nicely, blackening, curling up, and then finally being rendered into a fine ash, once Bartholomew crushes them in between his gloved hand.

Bartholomew dumps the ashes into his left hand. Then with careful, careful focus, he lifts his hand up, and rubs the ashes on his forehead. When his hand comes away, the remaining ash forms itself into this symbol on Bartholomew's forehead:



"Forehead divination." Bartholomew quips lightly heartedly/lightheadedly.

Then he looks down at the ash-coated coin lying in the palm of his hand, a tarnished coin that he'd dumped onto his exposed left hand and rubbed across his forehead without thinking (that this occured after all his efforts to avoid skin contact in the beginning is an irony that does not escape him).

His face pales.

"Oh crap."

{So that's the magic trick: it exists in different forms, and I put some in-game twists on it, but I've performed it in real life.

And Bartholomew appears to be up shit creek. Or demon super-powers creak depending on your perspective.}

[industrious]

Ivy

"I couldn't sleep. The death certificates kept coming in. Julia Randoph-Smith's, for example."

One of the women he had killed. A minor practitioner.

Ivy nods.

"And a single mother. She has a daughter. Lisa's my age."

Deirdre

She starts to stir after a few minutes, slowly returning to consciousness.

Nicodemus

He claps his hands then, slowly, and precisely.

"Very amusing, Mr. Dee. And now, I do bid you a very pleasant evening. Your life...is now your own."

Nicodemus crouches then, and with a single effort, propels himself into the air, shadow unfolding around him to make black wings that blot out the few stars that can be seen in the sky.

Dee is alone, adrenaline rushing through his veins. He feels alive in a way he's never felt before; his life had been a hair's breadth away from ending. But he was alive. He can almost hear someone humming in the distance, too. Do you believe in Magic by The Lovin' Spoonful.

((Just remember that the Fallen can only influence him if he grants it power. Of course, considering how persuasive they can be...))

[Colesign]

{Point taken, Industrious. However...}

Bartholomew Dee

Bartholomew Dee stares at the coin for a moment, then he flips in up in the air, catches it with one stroke, and begins walking back to his apartment. As he does so, he begins humming softly under his breath.

"...I'll tell ya about the magic
It'll free your soul
but it's like trying to tell a stranger
'bout rock n roll..."

After a bit of transit, he walks up the steps to his residence, unlocks the door, and peels away the length of magician's thread that he uses to search for break-ins. He begins softly singing the 1960's tune under his breath:

"....If you believe in magic, don't bother to choose
If it's jug band music or rhythm and blues
Just go and listen
It'll start with a smile..."

He slams and locks the door behind him. Upon reflection, he also chooses to close the drapes on his windows. There's a crazy blond sniper out there, after all. He slumps down in the swivel chair in front of the bar top.

"If you believe in magic
Come along with me
We'll dance until morning, just you and me
and maybe, if the music is right
I'll meet ya tomorrow
so late at night"

He stares at the tarnished coin in his left hand. Then, with his thumb, he rubs at the coin's face, wearing away the ash, until the face of George Washington came into view.

"We'll go a dancin' baby, and then you'll see
all the magic's in the music and the music's in me..."

With his right, gloved hand, he carefully, precisely sets the Blackened Denarii on the table, the Denarii he had concealed with a simple finger-palm and switched with the ash-covered 1981 quarter during the burning of the card deck.

"Believe in the magic in a young girl's soul
believe in the magic of rock n roll
Believe in the magic that can set you free
Ohhhh, talkin' bout magic!!!"

Upon reflection, he decides to first wrap the Denarii up in a layer of aluminum foil, sandwich it in between two long, flat skipping stones he'd found on a trip to Michigan, seal the cracks up with a circular spread of rubber cement, and then close said circle up with a drop of blood and a moment of concentration. Bartholomew Dee sets the improvised prison down on the counter.

And then he leans his head back and laughs. A nice long laugh filled with incredulity and relief.

{...You just got Prestidigitated, foo'...

Of course, feel free to call me out if this is God-modding.}

[Cracklord]

Kincaid
"That so?" He replies. Normally, he'd brush it off, and ignore her attempts to draw more out of him. This was hardly the first time she'd expressed some degree of growing disgust with what he did. What she knew intellectually was one thing, but as her emotional intelligence increased by virtue of experience, she was starting to lose the uninvolved attitude she'd once possessed. Another thing he shouldn't be encouraging. But he's a little ashamed himself, and wants to justify it. Perhaps if he does, he'll be able to get over it.
"You know what? I didn't even check. I probably should have. Much more professional, after all. But I was working for Vlad. She was dead the moment he began this. At least my way, she didn't suffer. Now what are you really doing here? Normally you wait until I get home to chew me out."

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