Between trips to other parts of the world Ihsan received a phone call from her old mentor.
He had gone back to Los Angeles several weeks ago without expecting her to join him. Perhaps he recognized the rapport she was building with River and wanted to support her in this. He and River are not on the best of terms right now but that's to be expected given that one of them shot the other one in the head and buried him out in the desert. That wasn't why he was calling. Why he was calling had to do with a few news reports that had been buried by other reports of murders and rapes and wars happening not far enough away to be of no concern to Americans.
Has she seen the reports about the art student who went missing, he wanted to know. The one with the same initials as Elijah Poirot's friend.
Ms. Ghali
It was frigid cold in Denver today. The kind of cold where the sky was free of clouds entirely and the sun was a dull pale glow from the south. Ihsan had been to cold environments and faired perfectly fine, but at the end of the day she had always previously come home to Los Angeles. It wasnever 24 degrees in Los Angeles.
For the time being, Ihsan called Denver her home base. She had finally conceded to being in Denver for at least a few months further, while she and River worked out this trek around the world to conquer the evil cult that was murdering people to some evil god in a well. And apparently on a mountain in Africa, but she hadn't gotten nearly that far yet.
The hotel room was far too expensive, so she'd purchased a 6-month lease on an apartment instead. This was where she was hiding away from the cold, bundled under a blanket with the letters and reading them for the hundredth time when Michael had called. She purred a melodic "Salam?" into the receiver.
Have you seen the reports?"
No.
Do you suppose you should look into that?
Yeah, I suppose.
This was how Ihsan found herself out in front of the Lavoie household, knocking on the door through leather gloves. Her rental car was parked in the driveway of some suburban home out in the middle of Aurora, Colorado. She stood on a plain doorstep with her breath hanging in the air in front of her and a mild crease to her brow in protest of it.
Julia Lavoie
No one in the suburbs enjoys winter enough to be outside given the temperature and the threat of snow. The only reason anyone is outside right now is to shovel the existing snow out of their driveway so they can escape the house. Many people are still out of town for the holidays. Many people have children home from college for the holidays.
Julia Harper Lavoie is one of those children home from college. She may be home for the rest of her life. Her therapist thinks she can get past what happened.
If she ever acknowledges what happened.
Her parents are loathe to leave her alone but they have lives and leaving her alone is an inevitability. Ihsan was not here to see her mother leave in her hybrid vehicle or her stepfather leave in his pickup truck. Julia does not have a car. When she lived in the city she walked or took public transportation. She was an environmentally-conscious young woman.
The Euthanatos has sharp senses. She can hear a tall yet slim individual moving towards the door. Can see the slant of light as someone comes to stand in front of the door and peer through the frosted glass inlays that take the place of a peephole.
She doesn't want to answer. She does anyway. Calls through the door without much force behind her voice, "Who is it?"
Ms. Ghali
At the sound of somebody approaching the door, Ihsan stepped backward in anticipation of it opening. When it didn't, she looked disappointed. Still, she tried to sound friendly when she answered back.
"Hello, miss! My name is Ihsan."
She left it there for now, realizing that she had not ahead-of-time come up with a good alibi to get herself through the door. She glanced behind her shoulder, shivered harshly from the cold, and looked back at the door again with her best pitifully chilled expression on.
"I, ah, just wanted to chat with a Julia Lavoie. I'm a Good Samaritan." She says it like it's the title of an organization-- capital letters pronounced and all. Her voice was like honey, though, smooth like bourbon, purring and convincing and hard to deny. "Is it okay if I come in? Warm my toes and fingers? I'm from California."
[It's just so cold, aren't I so pitiful? Let me in please: Charisma 3 + Empathy 1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Julia Lavoie
The man who taught Ihsan Ghali how to administer a Good Death was and still is thought of in high regard by the rest of their tradition.
Though the three of them were not privy to this Michael MacCarrick was entrusted with the training and guidance of a number of new-awakened Chakravanti. They received the same instruction even if they did not accept the same life advice. Ihsan and River have since learned that they were both bound for college degrees before they met him. That he lured them away from those degrees with promises of adventure and a more fulfilling life and that those promises were not empty. His third student stayed in school but Farrah was in the midst of pursuing a doctorate in biomedical engineering when she died.
Farrah was the student who took most easily to the Death aspect of their tradition. Fate too seemed to come easy to her but Death and Fate's intermingling helped lead Farrah to the end that took her. Her death was not good. It will haunt her avatar into the next life.
Michael taught Ihsan that the purpose of a Good Death was to wipe the slate clean. To allow the soul to move not into the Shadowlands but to reincarnate without the karmic debt accumulated by the one whose life they were ending. He taught her that she ought not just look for criminals and deviants but people who were slogging through life without purpose. People who deserved a second chance. He did not teach Ihsan to use Good Death as a punishment.
She knows her former mentor sometimes killed people who had slipped through cracks in the justice system. She also knows he preferred to steer those people back into productive lives versus outright killing them. Good Deaths were for those whose damage was irreparable.
He did not use the word "fucked" because he is not the sort of person who swears. For him the word 'gosh' is a swear. But to put it another way: Good Deaths are for people who are completely fucked.
The second she opens the door Ihsan can see that Julia Harper Lavoie is completely fucked.
In the articles written by the papers Lavoie was described as being tall and thin. Accompanying photographs were of a pale yet healthy woman with youthful features and copper-colored hair. Her smile was natural and her eyes glinted with good health. An Internet search would reveal her history: an active learner and a productive member of society. She was a volunteer summer counselor at a camp for disadvantaged youth and she was going to school to become an art therapist.
The girl who answers the door is tall but her thinness is more the result of a hollowing out than the result of genetics. Her paleness has become pallor. Ihsan has seen this sort of pallor before. When the Artist stole Michael's Quintessence and left him collapsing in on himself. This girl was not Awakened and she had no Quintessence to steal but Ihsan recognizes that shaky lack of color.
This girl was the Artist's hostage. She nearly became one of the chimera for which the Artist was known. Ihsan can see that escaped fate in the bruises beneath the girl's eyes.
"Okay," Julia says and stands aside to let Ihsan in.
Ms. Ghali
Poor girl.
Chakravanti were scary people, admittedly. Ihsan could be in particular, with her brash and always-forward approach to pretty much everything. She had genuinely worried and upset a fellow Awakened this way, without even intending to. She just thought that she was playing, but he went home that same night to rage hollow in his apartment. She was scary, perhaps, but she was not a cold-hearted thing. Ihsan was a creature of warmth-- fire, even, energy that was ever surging, ever forcefully present. It made for great passion, and paired with that was a sympathy that didn't die away no matter how accustomed to being a killer.
She was still sympathetic and caring, really. She just had an approach to it that others seemed to find despicable.
This sympathy showed in a stitching together of eyebrows when she saw the visage of what used to be Julia Lavoie, Intact.
"Thank you," Ihsan said with a nod when Julia invited her in. Once inside she shed her gloves and coat and a hat that was sitting on top of her sleek dark hair and stashed it on a coat hook or within a closet, whichever looked to be the best place. She would ask if her boots should come off, and would comply if that were the case. Once shed free of the outer layers of winter Ihsan was left in a snug black boatneck shirt and a pair of black jeans, with gold on her wrists and throat and lobes. She'd left a dark gray scarf hanging over her shoulders, but not looped around her neck.
She'd stand in the entryway with her hands at her sides once done and smile pleasantly, bracingly for the young woman once done. "Do you have a parlor?"
Julia Lavoie
The first Good Death to which Michael ever brought Ihsan was that of an immigrant who was working as a masseuse at a high-end spa in downtown Los Angeles.
Their paths had not crossed as a matter of coincidence. Michael often went out looking for people whose continued existence would only rack up more suffering. This particular individual had escaped civil war in her country and had come to America with the intent to go on with her life. Start a family and make something of herself. But she had stagnated. She had become bitter and sullen. Even with others in her life attempting to pull her out of herself she thought of herself as already dead.
Michael had been kind to this woman in her last moments. Her last moments lasted until dawn. He taught Ihsan that if she is going to take someone's life she had better make their last moments last. A botched Good Death would become a problem for her later on.
That was how the Artist happened. How ze was able to torture Michael through several lifetimes. It was a botched Good Death.
Julia does not have any opinions about death or fate. Within her as is within everyone she has the potential to Awaken. She has not Awakened. She barely looks awake in the mundane sense. Not as if the knock at the door dragged her out of slumber but as if she is sleepwalking from day to day anyway. Julia does not blink in the time she stands watching Ihsan discard her outerwear.
Does she have a parlor.
"Uh huh," she says. A beat. Some part of her brain remembers that hosts are to be polite to their guests even if they're unexpected. "It's through there." She gestures to a doorway off the hall in which they currently stand. This is a nice house in a nice neighborhood. She comes from a nice family. Pictures of her parents with her and her older sister and younger brother on the walls. "Do you want a drink?"
Ms. Ghali
The woman in the entrance of the Lavoie house was imposing in her initial impression. Dressed all in black, she was average height (taller in her boots) with high cheekbones and intense eyes and dark skin. You didn't come across people who looked like her too often in Denver-- this part of the country was rather whitewashed, after all. Her resting expression was a severe one, but her smiles were warm and convincing.
She offered one up to Julia, looking genuinely touched by the gesture of hospitality in an offered beverage.
"Anything warm would be very appreciated, thank you."
Ihsan was careful to watch how Julia moved when responding to the request. The poor woman seemed empty-- sleepwalking her way through a dazed existence. She could only imagine what the Nephandus put her through to leave such a shell. When the young woman was in the kitchen instead of the front entrance, Ihsan let herself into the parlor room that was pointed out behind a doorway. When Julia found her she was sitting on the couch, smiling and looking grateful for whatever she brought--hot or cold, crappy instant cocoa or a cup of tea alike.
"Thank you," she said as she had previously, and only after a sip would she raise her eyebrows at the young woman and inquire. "How have you been, Julia?"
Like a goddamn social worker or something.
Julia Lavoie
The first Good Death Ihsan ever watched was administered technically by the woman's own hands. She and Michael sat and talked for several hours. At first it was about nothing in particular but then the conversation looped back around to the ennui and the emptiness in the woman's life. At the end of the conversation she opened up a bottle of pills and swallowed them down with a glass of warm milk and when she was dead Mike called an ambulance from a payphone down the street.
It was a peaceful end. She went without protesting.
Hard to tell if Julia is going to protest. Plenty of them deny that the end has come for them. Some of them cry and some of them beg. A few of them resort to violence. None of them manage to talk their way out of it.
Julia gives a bare nod to the request. Turns automatic to fulfill it. Ihsan knows if Ihsan did any digging into her history that Julia worked part-time at a coffeehouse for three years before locking down a position at the art gallery.
She is in the kitchen for nearly five minutes before returning with a steaming mug of green tea. First thing that she grabbed. Ihsan is lucky she did not get a mug full of hot water and vinegar. That is how little attention Julia is paying to her surroundings.
And Ihsan wants to know how she's been.
"Fine," she says. Got in plenty of practice lying at Thanksgiving but then again when she left the festivities to sit in the bathroom and cry no one thought anything of it. Julia had been missing for a month. Her voice sounds as if it's coming up from the bottom of an open grave. "How are you?"
Ms. Ghali
"Sympathetic." This was Ihsan's immediate answer to Julia's returned question of how are you? She sat with her hands warming around the ceramic of the mug, leaned forward on the couch with her legs open and elbows rested upon knees. Her head was held upright, though, despite the forward curl. Shoulders down instead of hunched. Gaze attentive, invested.
"And helpful." She sipped her tea, letting Julia have a chance to think about that particular word before piping up again.
"Are you fine compared to how you were? Before you were taken? Or are you fine for what you are now? Alive?"
[Tell me how you really feel, Ihsan's only here to help: Charisma 3 + Empathy 1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
Julia Lavoie
Ihsan could have been the best therapist on the planet and she would need more time with Julia to start to feel as if she were on the verge of a breakthrough. Girls like Julia don't last long enough for a breakthrough. She has missed a month's worth of classes. Her professors are sympathetic but they have policies to which they have to adhere. A month's worth of missed classes requires documentation and inroads through the registrar and Julia gave up on class before she came stumbling back to civilization.
It was not in the news. Anything Ihsan would have wanted to know that was in police reports she would have to dig for. Maybe Alexander could be of some assistance there but the fact that Mike was even suggesting she go check on her was a decent indication that that wouldn't be necessary.
Julia takes a seat across from Ihsan. This living room has expensive and uncomfortable furniture. The couch the Euthanatos chose has a small yet ornate table in front of it. It's not big enough to qualify as a coffee table. One could fit a tea tray on it and no more. Across from the couch are two armchairs. There is no television in the living room. Plenty of bookcases and an old Victrola that looks as if it's still functional and potted plants that are well cared-for. She sits with her ankles crossed and her fingers knit together. Her hair has a stringy quality that suggests some time has passed since she last washed it.
"I'm just fine," she says. If she lets herself think about what Ihsan is asking her she's going to feel pain. She doesn't look as if she's capable of registering pain but that doesn't mean she's out to feel it. 'Just' is a qualifier and not an amplifier. "And I wasn't taken."
Ms. Ghali
"Oh dear, you tell yourself that every day you wake up, and every night when you go to sleep, do you not?"
Ihsan shook her head, looking sad for the young woman, and held eye contact with her for an unwavering handful of seconds before rising from the couch. As she did, she left the tea mug on the small table between them.
Like a cat, Ihsan stalked her way easy smooth and confident back to the parlor door. She leaned out into the hallway and looked around, listened, then straightened up as she grasped the doorknob.
"There were no cars in the driveway. Is it just you here, Julia?"
Julia Lavoie
Julia maintains that eye contact. Doesn't think she has a choice. This is happening and whatever else happened while she was with the Artist happened without her consent either. Thus far Ihsan hasn't given her the sense that she is in any danger but she is giving Ihsan the sense that if she were in danger she wouldn't fight back.
Learned helplessness. A researcher named Seligman unearthed this phenomenon back in the 1960s observing golden retrievers who became unable to escape from an electrified cage even though the door was wide open after several prior escape attempts failed due to the door's being locked. This concept applies to humans too. Some people take to victimhood quicker than do others.
The Artist was dead for two weeks before Julia returned to civilization.
Now she sits and does not look at Ihsan as she moves to the threshold. It puts Ihsan at her back.
Is it just you here, Julia?
"Yeah," she says.
Ms. Ghali
"Mmm. That is lonesome, isn't it." The way that Ihsan spoke was made almost lyrical with her unfamiliar accent. She'd spoken with Mike on another phone call-- figured she would call him for the information that she might need going in as opposed to utilizing other researchers to dig up dirt. He was the one sending her out on this mission anyways, as she may have to remind him.
He'd helped her come aware of the time that had passed between the destruction of the Nephandus and when the story of Julia's resurfacing hit the news. She was seeing the woman here now, moving like a puppet with slack strings. Unenthused, barely aware, following motions and nothing more.
Ihsan realized she was just looking sympathetically at the girl again, with her mouth pressed into a sad line. She shook her head, clucked her tongue a little, and returned to retrieve her tea by the rim of the mug with her fingertips. She stayed standing before Julia, though, and carried the tea up to her face. She held it there, steam making a curtain before her face, and looked down to the hollow woman.
"Tell me. What do you believe happens after you die?"
And she hid her mouth behind the rim of the mug, sipping her drink as she awaited the response.
Julia Lavoie
"Well..."
As automatic a response as anything else would have been. Making small talk when you don't want to get out of bed is a skill one has to practice the same as anything else. Like as not Julia doesn't question whether or not she has any thoughts about getting out of bed. She just does it because she doesn't think she has a choice.
For the last several weeks her parents have been treating her careful. Like she's nothing but broken bones and burnt skin and as soon as the physical damage heals they'll have their daughter back.
Ihsan and Mike have different ways of dealing with the deaths they dole out. The way he taught her was not the only way to usher a soul off to the next life. The way he taught Ihsan is not the way Chara taught him. It's just the way he does it.
It has been several years since Ihsan passed through her diksha. Mike did not feel as if he had to send her on a mission. He mentioned it in passing and the conversation set her off on her way. The man has that effect on people.
One corner of Julia's mouth turns down as she has to think. It doesn't occur to her to ask why this stranger is asking her such a thing. Her eyes linger on the space between them. Don't rise back to Ihsan's face once they leave them.
"I don't know. Nothing, I suppose."
Ms. Ghali
More tongue-clucking proved disappointment or disagreement in Julia's answer. Ihsan shook her head and took another sip from her mug before lowering it to be level with her chest. Palms still warmed on the drink, but Ihsan was far more invested in the red-haired waif before her than she was in the green tea. She wasn't actually worried about the drink-- she just appreciated hospitality and liked to encourage it.
"What if...." She started, then paused. The line was cast, and she was trying to reel the girl in.
Whether or not she looked interested or responded much at all, the Egyptian woman would continue.
"What if I were to tell you that it is better there? On the other side? For I have been and I have seen. And I can help you there, too." She did say she was feeling helpful, after all.
Julia Lavoie
What if...
At that the young woman lifts her eyes. It's the polite thing to do. So was answering the door even though she didn't want to and fetching her visitor a beverage even though she herself forgets to eat if no one prompts her. If her stepfather doesn't put food in front of her. Forgets or just doesn't care enough to.
And Ihsan goes on. Tells her it's better on the other side.
This is the part where some people allow themselves to feel hope. Some people get angry or confused or upset or all three. Julia takes a breath and appears to consider it. Does not react. Perhaps does not feel as if she has permission to react.
The Artist was capable of reaching across space and time to hurt people. Ze could bust down mental barriers and corrupt their essences. Ze had been alive a very long time. If ze wanted someone to listen to zir ze was more than capable of compelling them even if ze was dead.
"The other side?"
Though it is a question and framed as one Ihsan cannot hear genuine interest in Julia's voice.
Ms. Ghali
Ihsan sighed, the sound sad, and set the mug of tea down on the table. She reached out a hand to the girl, palm up and fingers curled, offering her a hand. Something about her demeanor seemed otherworldly. She was vividly there, as though she had ripped her way into existance from another realm entirely.
Something about this moment should be making a statement to the girl. Were she in her proper capacities there should have been something... some response within the very spirit and soul. This would be a moment that she would never forget again in her life, for when Ihsan lowered her chin and grabbed hold of the girl's gaze with her own, it would feel very much like staring into the eyes of a predatory cat in the darkness of night, and recognizing the moment when your time had come.
This would be a kind death, but that didn't necessarily mean that it would not be a violent one all the same.
"Come with me."
It was a command. The sheer forcefulness of it was to compel her to move.
[That was an order. This is what's best - Manipulation 4 + Intimidation 1, -1 diff (forceful resonance)]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 3, 5, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
[Scene fades as transcript ends here. Ultimately, Ihsan takes the poor girl up into the bathroom upstairs and slits her throat for her in the bathtub. A good death!]
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