Michael
Previously:
Michael and Ihsan arrived in Denver, Colorado on the afternoon of Sunday, October 11th on separate planes. They reconvened at their hotel room downtown after Michael met with the contact of his contact, whose name was Grace, and laid down to take a nap. Naps are important.
The next morning he told Ihsan that he was going to meet with Grace and an apprentice of the Order of Hermes to discuss what happened the night of August 20th, when a chimera composed of two living women fused together attacked said apprentice, whose name was Elijah, and another of Grace's tradition. It was not meant to be a long meeting. It was not. They ran about fifteen minutes longer than he anticipated.
Grace decided to go to the gallery in the Santa Fe Arts District to seek out a painting of the visage of the Nephandus that Elijah's friend, a sleeper art student named Jenn, had hanging in its inventory. Michael decided to accompany her. Considering their quarry it was best if she didn't go alone.
They left Elijah's house over the florist's to find a young Egyptian woman standing next to Michael's Nissan Altima. Oh right. He told her to meet her here after they had both completed their separate tasks. Quick introduction: Ihsan, this is Grace Evans, she's a friend of Father EcheverrÃa's. Grace, this is Ihsan Ghali, a member of the Euthanatos and my former student.
In current traffic it's going to take fifteen minutes to get from Elijah's house to the gallery. The introductions are given quick and as they're climbing into the car.
And now they're off.
Grace
The last few minutes have been tense ones. Michael had the pleasure of meeting Grace when she wasn't quite so wound up, but Ihsan isn't going to be so lucky. Grace has just had to stand up to the Euthanatos Adept in order to earn the privilege of being allowed to continue sharing what she knows with him. She had to accept something cast upon her that she didn't (still doesn't) quite understand, as the man stood in front of her, barring her path.
And they have both just found out something alarming.
So, this is not a cool, calm, smiling Grace that Ihsan gets to meet. This is Grace on a mission. Her eyes are sharp things that she doesn't keep sheathed. The wings that one can feel (but not see) emerging from her back threaten to propel her faster than she should really go. They don't have a lot of time.
"Hi. We've got to go buy a painting," she says, as the introductions are completed, and she hurries herself into the back seat of Michael's car.
Ihsan
The woman standing beside the car was somewhere in her mid-twenties and dressed in modern fashions-- a pair of black skinny jeans tucked into black calf-high boots, with a maroon knit sweater that looked prone to slipping off her shoulder. Her dense black hair was tied down her shoulder in a braid, and she stood leaned back against the car with ankles crossed and smartphone in hand.
When the two arrived she looked up with eyes as pitch dark as her hair, and revealed a face that was built long and hard by default, but pretty even with the underlighting that the screen of her phone cast. She was about to offer a smile in greeting, but the expression stumbled and fell off her face when the full force of Grace on a Mission was met.
Soon the phone was tucked away and she was tucked as well, but into the passenger seat of the car. There was a messenger bag on the car floor by her feet, which the phone was tucked into before she straightened up and buckled up too.
"A painting? Has a muse come to bite toes?"
Michael
Though he does not walk with the same sharp determination as does the Mercurial Elite the other Euthanatos always moves with a sense of purpose. A trip to the grocery store is a journey that requires his full attention. When they come upon the car and Ihsan looks up from her phone Michael makes eye contact with her. Sees the smile that almost came to pass. Offers her one of his own.
Then they're in the car. He starts the engine and buckles his seatbelt and reverses away from the curb.
"Ah, this is taking me back," he says before he shifts into first gear again and sets them on their way. As for the muse: "I'm afraid so. A painting of our friend The Artist has a price tag on it, and a Sleeper's signature is on it."
Grace
Grace has been ignoring her phone lately. It's been almost an hour now. And so, she goes to check. That's right, new person, this Virtual Adept is going to say hi and then immediately bury her face in a screen. Sure enough, Ginger bears some fruit. She reads, frowns.
"Unless we have another murderer in town who leaves behind a faint resonance, I'd say the latest killing happened on East Colfax, a few hours ago. I'm asking for more details. We've got a couple members of the police in Denver who are Awake, and at least one of them talks to me."
See, Michael, this is why you keep Grace around.
Then, she closes out of Ginger's messages, and starts messing around with the Other programs...
Ihsan
Up in the front seat, Ihsan opted to roll down the window at a stop light. She'd pushed her sweater sleeves up to her elbow so the fabric wouldn't get too dirty when she decided to hook her elbow out the open window. Hairs gone loose near the front of her head fluttered and whipped about in the wind, depending on how fast they were going at any given point.
She spoke clearly and loudly enough, in accented but understandable English (her Egyptian-Arabic accent was a dense one, the language was clearly learned later in life as opposed to being spoken in the household). The car-generated wind would try to eat her speech but fail.
"So, what, you think our Artist is going to come find her? Why bother, unless he destroys the painting first? Or is--..." She was thinking out loud, and demonstrating the fact that she could piece puzzles together but wasn't necessarily the smartest about it.
"Is that the idea? We're going to get the painting to get him to come to us?" Pause. "....We could stop at a bar first, if that's the case."
Michael
Though Michael has not been the most inclusive partner in crime in the history of the planet he had given Ihsan a briefing prior to their parting ways with the intention to meet up again in Denver. This Nephandus has been around for several decades and has been known to him personally for several of his past lives and he began receiving taunting telepathic messages from it. Zir, he calls it. A genderfluid pronoun rather than a dehumanizing one.
Sympathy for one on the path to Descension or at the very least an understanding that if he ceases to think of the things he hunts with respect then he himself will start to walk a dark path.
This Nephandus likes to make killing machines out of the forms of two or more women. These are the things they know about it.
"Not exactly," says Michael, "although that would be preferable to trying to chase zir. Our fear is that, having seen a painting with zir face on it, The Artist will try and find the young woman who created it. It was a fantastic painting, Ihsan. Defies description."
Grace
"I would rather this Artist not take notice of my Sleeper friend if I can avoid it," Grace says, face still buried in her phone.
Elijah would never forgive himself if Jenn got hurt. Maybe that would be enough of a shock to get him to actually think about security though. Probably not, she thinks, with a sigh.
Grace, however, is thinking about security. As they drive along, she has started her Work. A cognitive firewall is going up, as is basic precaution when dealing with something that can potentially reach through space and wrench your brains out.
[Mind 1, diff 4 - 1 (Taking time) = Mind Shielding.
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (2, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )
Ihsan
"Yeah," Ihsan said in agreement to Grace in the backseat. She didn't know this Sleeper, didn't seem like she would be inclined to care about her well-being either. That lack of investment was audible in her voice, like she was distractedly agreeing while still thinking about something else.
A sniff against the slight runniness of nose that the wind and allergens on it was causing, and she vocalized whatever thought she was dwelling on.
"Did he pose for this painting, or....," she let the thought trail off, losing words for it, and continued on with the rest of her thought while twisting her hand and wrist into the wind to show that she was continuing along. "Because this Sleeper couldn't have seen the Artist and decided 'You know what, I'm going to paint his face and put it on display to piss him off' if they had any context for how wicked he is."
Michael could try to correct her to use 'zir' all he wanted, she seemed to keep forgetting to use it. Or just didn't give a damn.
Michael
Though the pronoun he's chosen is his own preference Michael doesn't do anything other than continue using it. No point lecturing Ihsan on why referring to the individual as in the masculine isn't accurate.
Before he answers Mike lets his eyes flick to the rearview mirror to see what Grace is doing. Though he isn't speeding or driving like a reckless asshole he has yet to hit a red light. No one is driving super slow in front of him. No pedestrians have tried to run across the road and forced him to stomp on the brakes yet.
"It's my understanding," he says, "that Jenn created the painting based on a description given to her by Elijah, who looked back in time to see how the chimera... came to be."
A beat.
"What was that about a killing on East Colfax?"
Grace
Grace would explain more, but she's busy tying knots into the fractal of her mind, sealing off the edges so that nothing untoward can peel their way into it. It takes a measure of concentration. If you fuck it up, you're fucking up your own brain.
"It was a man. Had his stomach and throat slit open," she says, and her voice is airy, distracted. "I can put you in touch with the guy who found out about it. He's a cop, so probably through his job."
That's about all she can say at the moment, and those words are strange ones with long pauses in between them.
[Extending!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (1, 2, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Grace
[With the right number of dice this time...]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Ihsan
"And then they both decided to sell it."
Ihsan was squinting with some mingling of disappointment in these strangers and puzzled thought on her face. Straight out the window. She didn't have long to dwell, though, for soon enough the car was pulling up against some new curb elsewhere in the city and going into park.
No sooner was the car settled into the parked gear when the dark-skinned dark-eyed dark-haired woman pushed open the passenger door both with foot and hand. She jammed hands to pockets soon as she was out on the sidewalk, with a set to her shoulders and elbows and feet that looked impatient and anxious. Wanting to move, to push, to pull, to do something. A buzzing energy that probably wouldn't find its way into an art gallery without the direction of the incredibly focused charismatic older man leading the charge.
Michael
And then they both decided to sell it.
"It was a tremendous painting," he says again.
Onto the matter of the man found dead in an apartment. Not necessarily his apartment but an apartment. He glances sidelong at Ihsan to see if he can glean what she might be thinking. Their target doesn't use knives to make zir kills. Ze uses unspeakable magick. Knives make it sounds like the work of another person.
One thing at a time.
I can put you in touch with the guy who found out about it. He's a cop, so probably through his job.
"If you would. I doubt it's the same individual, but it can't hurt to rule it out."
Then they've arrived. Mike finds a parking space on the street less than half a block from the gallery and leaves the Altima there. As the young women head towards the front door he stays behind at the car to tap out a message on his cellphone.
It doesn't take long for Grace and Ihsan to find a curator or an intern or whatever the sharp-dressed blond woman in a pencil skirt and demure pumps is. She's leaning against a desk writing something on a clipboard when the door opens. No one else is in here. Her eyebrows lift when she sees them but she doesn't seem alarmed.
"Good afternoon," she says. Her accent sounds like she's trying hard to sound as if she doesn't have an accent.
Grace
It should be good enough, she thinks. Should be. The feeling of glitchy, slippery freedom ebbs as she closes out the mental program, but it's still running -- a daemon in the background of her mind.
"Perhaps. But I can rarely give Elijah credit for having any idea of what his actions might result in in the future," she says. "I doubt he had a second thought about what anyone would think upon seeing the face of a murderer hanging up somewhere, painted by nobody in particular. Remember, we first thought it was vampires. Vampires tend to have a lot of friends."
He's got a severe lack of foresight, that Elijah. Very strange, considering the sphere of Time is his whole thing.
Michael says that he doesn't think it's the same individual, and Grace rolls her eyes. Not at him, at the world. Why do you have to be so fucked up, Denver? "You mean there's two of them now? Perfect."
They get out of the car, and head off to find that curator.
"Hi," says the woman in blue jeans and a zipped-up grey turtleneck jacket. Not exactly high classy style, except maybe this is one of those horribly rich people who sets out to look like a starving student? It happens. "Do you have anything... just super striking? I'm looking for something for a friend."
Ihsan
Together two women walk into the gallery. Grace having just recently shaken deep technological distraction away after fortifying her own mind (just in case), in her student-esque attire, and Ihsan with her heavy dark colors and resting severe face. They found a curator, and Grace began by saying she wanted something striking for a friend.
Ihsan looked bored with trying to fish for the right answer. She wasn't the kind to catch her fish with a lure and line-- she was a spearhunter instead.
"I was thinking of a portrait. Something amazing, like hyper-realism or something exactly the opposite of it." There's the air of privilege about her, it was how she managed to be dismissive and bored even when talking about buying what could very well be the most expensive painting in the house. Money wasn't a factor with this woman, she probably paid way too much money for that hairstyle she wore.
"I want it to stare that bitch in the face whenever she's trying to relax in her reading room."
And then she smiled all white teeth that, if only for half a second, looked like they may have learned to rip and tear some number of years ago.
[[ Scene Fade-- the curator said the painting sold and shipped away, so Ihsan buggered off to go get a drink at a nearby bar instead of hang out with Michael and Grace. ]]
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