River met Jackson Elias in San Diego several years ago when he was stateside for what she has since learned is a rare stop on American soil. He went to the club where she was dancing with a few of his friends since he had a layover on his way back to New York and they got to talking and she realized that he has not only written several books about death cults. The best known of those books is about modern-day Thuggees in India. Sons of Death. He infiltrated the cult and wrote a book about it.
They started up an email friendship after that. He sends her post cards occasionally. His books illustrate how cults manipulate the fears of their followers. He has never found proof of supernatural powers or magic or dark gods and he isn't looking for it either. His thesis supports insanity and feelings of inadequacy as explanations for death cultists and their weak mindedness. Cult leaders tend to be clever and manipulative. When fear of a cult stops the cult itself vanishes.
He had texted her to say that he was going to be back in the states and was surprised to hear that she was in Denver now and not San Diego. He was staying in Denver overnight the night of the 11th.
So he arrived. He called River asking her to meet him at Brown Hotel, Room 410, at eight o'clock. He was not his typical fearless self. Though he tried to keep up his tough exterior over the phone River could hear through it. He sounded anxious and did not give her any insight into what it was he wanted to talk to her about. Hung up the second she started to press him.
Given everything that's gone down recently no one would blame her for deciding to go to check it out nor for bringing Ihsan with her. Something about this is off.
River Vasquez
When River Vasquez decides that someone is her people, they are her people. There is no argument about it, there is no negotiation; you are in. It is a backstage pass for all of the boring, inane, gritty details of River's life that most people don't get. Jackson Elias is one of her people. She'd found him engaging and enjoyable and disarming int he kind of way that told her that she needed to keep in contact with this person because he was just so cool.
The postcards he's sent her were actually things that came with her from San Diego to Denver. She's got them in a shoebox along with the not-so-legal legal documents that support an entire second identity. She considers their interactions to be worth keeping up with. Finding out that he was in Denver was a point of delight; she'd even told Ihsan about it.
There was a brief runshown from that intial text that she'd given the woman she was sharing space with- Ihsan, like it or not, is on her way to getting to be on the list of people River has deigned to be hers and, as such, poor Ihsan is likely going to end up becoming a friend and not just a person with whom she shares a greater cosmic purpose. (Because, you know, that's not a big deal at all)
She'd told her that her friend Jackson was in town, that he'd written a book and had infiltrated some cult and that he was pretty damn cool. From what she's seen of Ihsan, River concluded that she'd probably like him and that the two of them meeting had to happen at some point. Then? There was the call, and something... seemed off. She nodded along, agreed to come but needed to know what this was about, was concerned, because she'd said something seemed off but-
Nothing. He hung up quickly, immediately when she pressed.
She looked at her phone, lips pressed into a line. Looks back at Ihsan-
"Hey, you know that friend I was telling you about?" she's not quite so excited, sounds like she's walking into a darkened room when she leads off, "I think something's up and... I'd like it if you came with me when I go talk to him."
If there was an affirmative, it was off with her. Gigantic pink purse in hand.
Ihsan Ghali
As of late, Ihsan and River have been occupying shared space. Ihsan never spoke of the situation as anything permanent-- everything was always in the present tense. Everything was 'for now'. She stayed at the hotel, kept paying to extend the stay, and worked from her laptop on the couch or bed when she wasn't out exploring the town and having day-or-evening adventures of her own. Ihsan went out quite a lot, you see-- not just bars and clubs, mind you, but festivals and museums and hiking out in the mountains and pretty much any other adventure that she could think of locally.
Or, at least, that was all on her 'to do' list. She got into the mountains once before the snow started to come down to the benches. She was looking into a snow trip, curiously reading about 'snow caves' and camping with them on her laptop when River disconnected a phone call and looked concerned about it.
I think something's up and I'd like it if you came with me.
To begin, the other Mage didn't look immediately interested. It was the friend that she was telling her about, and she thought something was up. So what? But Ihsan took away the impression that River was seeking back-up, safety, dare one say even muscle to come along with, just in case things were weird. In their lives, things could get pretty goddamn weird.
"Alright," she had agreed, and donned a scarf and jacket to be on her way.
Away to the Brown Hotel. To Room 410. To meet at 8:00pm.
cultists
The Brown Palace Hotel is the second-oldest hotel in the city. It is made of sandstone and red granite and has the distinction of being the site of several murders back in 1911. Rumor has it that the place is haunted. They aren't here about ghosts. They're here about a spooked writer who doesn't easily spook.
When they arrive they see nothing out of the ordinary either outside the building or in the lobby of the hotel itself. It is a busy night and a tour bus idles in front of the atrium doors. No sign of Elias out in the open. The elevators function just fine and they pass one other couple on their way off on the fourth floor.
Eight o'clock and all appears well so far.
River Vasquez
The Brown Palace Hotel seems like the kind of place that her friend would stay, if only because it was nice and it was interesting. The hotel seemed normal enough, and the young woman is stomping the snow off her tennis shoes. The hotel seems normal enough, though. It's busy, people are moving around. It doesn't seem like anything is out of the ordinary. Nothing is pinging at the back of her mind telling her that something is going horribly wrong.
She's off to take the elevator up to the room. 410, they're meeting at 8:00 pm, she doesn't think anything odd about it, doesn't expect that her friend is going to get strong armed down a fire escape or anything of the sort. Besides, it's Denver. It's cold. There's snow, it would be hard to get out without making a show, right?
Of course right. River inhales a slow and steady breath.
"I wonder if he has other friends in Denver," she mused.
Ihsan Ghali
"The cigar club here is very smooth."
Ihsan looked about the hobby as they stepped inside off the street. She unbuttoned her coat and shook the front flaps a couple of times to shake the snow off. Instead of sneakers, she tapped black knee-high boots against the floor to free the snow from their tread and toes as well. Ihsan liked her fashion to be sharp and dark, so she wore slate gray wool leggings and a black peacoat as well (underneath which, more black-- a simple slim dress that was dressed up with a necklace and earrings). Her hair was slicked back into a ponytail, and it whipped to-and-fro when she shook her head a few times to free the snow from her hair as well.
Nothing interesting or out of the ordinary in the lobby. Nothing of particular interest in the elevator either. Once they hit the fourth floor Ihsan checked the plaques to signify which rooms were in which direction, and started the thump-thump tread of boots in the direction of 410. River wondered about other friends in the city, and Ihsan just huffed and spoke dismissively in that densely flavored accent of hers.
"There is little to Denver but legal pot to draw people in. I cannot imagine there being too many friends here."
And if River didn't take initiative to knock on the door before she reached it herself, Ihsan would raise a fist and rap upon it instead.
River Vasquez
[Per+alert: heeeeey?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )
Ihsan Ghali
[Perception 2 + Alertness 2]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
cultists
Behind the door they can both hear people moving around. More than one from the sounds of it. Based on the way they move it sounds as if everyone inside the room is male.
River Vasquez
She makes a sound that is low and displeased, not the sort of minor displeasure that one has when they misplace their carkeys. It's the nonverbal equivalent of cursing-
"Hey," she says when she looked back at Ihsan, whispered, "I don't speak Swahili and there are people in there looking for something- think we can get the door open?"
Without, you know, busting down the door.
To her credit, River does try to quietly turn the door knob in hopes that, maybe, they got lucky and it was unlocked.
Ihsan Ghali
All that Ihsan could hear was a pair of men moving about and speaking. She couldn't distinguish what was being said-- no language, no tone, nothing really. She had no immediate reason to be suspicious of the other person in the room. Not until River made that sound, that is. When River rumbled a non-verbal curse and wore an expression to match the sound, Ihsan's own brow heavied and the general sense of keeping casual slipped right away.
As River tested the door knob, Ihsan looked down and watched her hand, watched the knob to see if it would turn. Certainly enough, it did no such thing-- the room was absolutely locked.
"Only with help from the inside," she murmured. A plum-painted thumbnail came up to her mouth, and she took it between her teeth to initiate an old habit of chewing. She stopped herself from gnawing, though, and when something occurred to her several seconds later she dropped her hand and looked at River with raised eyebrows.
"We ask to be let in. Perhaps your friend likes to hire... companions for his hotel stay."
Those raised eyebrows wagged twice, a quick up-down-up-down, and her mouth pulled into a small smirk.
She then rapped knuckles briskly on the door again.
cultists
That causes a bit of a commotion.
At first everyone behind the door stops moving. Then the sounds of rapid cleaning up. Then the voices again. Some sort of debate between whoever is in the room and then the door cracks just enough to let the two young women see the right half of the face of a thin white man with stringy blond hair and cocaine-red eyes.
This is not Elias. It is no one either of them recognize.
"Yeah?" he asks in a thick Bronx accent. "Whaddaya want?"
River Vasquez
"Hey," she says, smiles that pretty smile of hers and does what she does when she's at work- flirts with people whom she would rather not spend more than ten minutes with. There's a tension there and she's locked eyes with the man. River doesn't try to see past him; the only way she sees herself getting in is going through.
"Jonas at the Diamond Cabaret said that I had a job here tonight for a party," she tells the man, idly plays with the top button of her shirt, then the second- enough that a little more of Ms. Vasquez is present than the weather would normally coax out, "he didn't tell me there were gonna be guys from out of town. So, you gonna take a break?"
Ihsan Ghali
River could do the talking. She did a great job of being the frontman when they looked into that police investigation scene.
Ihsan looked at the pale face and red eyes, pouted a frown, and looked over to River. Watched her as she spoke, then looked questioningly back to the pale-faced red-eyed man.
Raised her eyebrows. Bit her lip. Smiled.
Girl just wants to get paid to party.
cultists
The man behind the door is not a bright bulb. He frowns as if he doesn't entirely understand what it is that the pretty Hispanic girl is trying to convey to him. Someone named Jonas sent her here. There are two of them.
He turns his head to one side as if to confer with someone else in the room. No words pass his lips.
"Y-Yeah," he says. Sniffs hard and tugs at his nose. "Yeah. H-Hang on."
The door closes long enough for him to disengage the security bar and then it opens again. He stands well clear of the door and lets the two young women enter. This is when the not-rightness of the situation becomes clear.
Off to one side the bathroom door is closed but not latched. No light shines beneath it. Though no evidence sits out the fact that a struggle occurred here seems to ring in the air still. The man is wearing a shabby suit and has a bush knife sheathed and suspended from his belt by a loop.
Blood has soaked into the mattress of the queen-sized bed in the center of the room. It stands out harsh against the cream-colored comforter. From where they stand they cannot see the body that produced all that blood.
The door shuts fast and hard behind them. Two young Kenyan men step out from around the corner of the bedroom. One of them holds a still-bloodied bush knife in his hand. River and Ihsan are not stupid. They know there's about to be a fight.
River Vasquez
[Phobia! Because holy fucking shit blood]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
River Vasquez
There's blood soaking a queen sized mattress in the middle of the room and the visceral reaction she has is to start screaming. To her credit, she does not start screaming. She doesn't scream, she doesn't turn, she doesn't act like she's going to run-
Like running was an option, the door shuts hard and fast behind them and River has a very good feeling that these gentlemen have severely limited the number of options that the girls have at this juncture. There's been a struggle, something happened here and she intends on figuring out precisely what it was even though...
Her brain goes to worst case scenarios, and she doesn't see evidence of her friend or if he's still alive because there's no body to match up to all of that blood and River Vasquez has had about enough of people murdering her friends for this year, thank you. Her reaction should be one that provokes flight but instead the young woman is just pissed off.
"Someone is going to tell me where Jackson Elias is," she insists, grips her purse a little tighter and speaks from a place of authority that she knows she doesn't have.
Ihsan Ghali
Into the room they go, and very quickly the door slammed right behind them. There were several men in here, more than one of them with knives as it turned out. Ihsan's escort girl act dropped quickly, and severity came to her face like that was its natural state to be. Her hands stayed tightly gripped into fists within the pockets of her coat, and dark eyes hopped back and forth across the room.
Tallying up men alive. Noting the large bloodstain and the blood still on the knife. Noting the lack of a Jackson Elias. Noting that there were a couple of Kenyans here in the Rocky Goddamn Mountains, of all places.
The air buzzed with danger that had gone from potential to imminent. River gripped her purse and demanded to know where her friend was.
Ihsan clenched her jaw and readied herself. This was a Fight or Flight situation, and the option to fly had been taken away entirely. That was fine, though. Ihsan was more of a fighting kind of woman anyways. It was a good thing that she wore her ass kicking boots today.
cultists
[general action roll for the homeboys]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (2, 4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
River Vasquez
[General action for River! Dex+brawl]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (4, 6, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Ihsan Ghali
[Disarm/Seize Knife Effort: Dex 3 + Melee 2]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (4, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Ihsan Ghali
[One more time with feeling!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (2, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
cultists
[one more for the road]
Dice: 5 d10 TN8 (1, 3, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
cultists
In the second before everyone realizes a fight is afoot the two Chakravanti can make out that the two Kenyans are wearing headpieces that appear to be crafted out of leather. A red strip dangles from the forehead like a tongue or a tentacle.
A flurry of activity in the cramped room as the men realize the women are between them and the door.
River manages to knock down the man who already has his bloodied weapon in hand and clocks his friend hard enough that the both of them decide they're not sticking around for her to continue whetting her fists on them. Ihsan meanwhile attempts to disarm the man who answered the door. He knocks her hand away but she unsheathes it on the second try.
Restrained hollering in Swahili and the two Kenyans regain their feet and make for the door. The fellow who answered isn't interested in sticking around to argue with a woman who now has his blade. He stammers a bit before turning and running after his fellows.
River Vasquez
River Vasquez may or may not have a brick in her purse for these sorts of occasions. She looks back at the two Kenyan men, can't place the headpiece but she's trying to make sense of what's going on around her, the world erupts into activity and she is suddenly glad that she thinks that it is completely appropriate to keep seven hundred page hardbacks in her purse because you might need to read about some anomie or strain theory or some shit at a random interval.
She's nto happy. River is not a violent person, or does not think of herself as a violent person, but she is not happy at that juncture and may or may not have some repressed anger to work out on people who are trying to potentially stab her and may or may not have murdered one of her friends.
Deciding that the stammering fellow who answered the door is the weak link, the young Hispanic woman bolts to try and catch up with them.
Ihsan Ghali
River is not a violent person, but as the room bursts into action it becomes a little more apparent that Ihsan is. Soon as the pink purse began swinging through the air like a flail, Ihsan jerked toward the coked out looking white boy that had opened the door in the first place. She was going for the knife-- she didn't to bring fists into a knife fight if she could do anything at all about it. Her hand was pushed away the first time, but persistence was her friend and on the second attempt that blade came free from its sheathe and into her hand like it wanted to be there.
There's a brief moment of pause between her and the coke-nosed contender, where Ihsan stood with the knife in her head. Tension, and that poor man could hardly picture anything but the dark-skinned woman ripping into him with his own knife.
Along with the men that River had thoroughly bricked he chose to flee the hotel room. River went running after them, but Ihsan hung back. With the knife still gripped in her hand (this is mine now), Ihsan took her time strolling through the room to hunt for the source of all the blood.
Perhaps they stashed the body in the bathtub...
River Vasquez
[Dex+brawl- maybe grappling?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
cultists
[nooooo i want to hang out with my frieeeeends]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )
cultists
Nothing in the bathroom but a disemboweled piece of luggage. Spilled out of an accordion folder is a typewritten letter without envelope signed by a Miriam Atwright of Harvard University. It is addressed to Mr. Jackson Elias c/o Prospero House Publishers on Lexington Avenue in New York and reads
Dear Mr. Elias,
The book about which you inquired is no longer in our collection. The information you seek may be found here in other volumes. If you will contact me upon arrival, I will be most happy to further assist you.
Also spilled out of the folder is a business card printed on ordinary stock. Written in ink on the back of the card is the name "Silas N'Kwane."
Meanwhile River manages to slow down the escaping cokehead but doesn't get her arms around him. He yelps and grabs for the door.
River Vasquez
She can't think of what to do at that juncture- she's a little desperate and, without really thinking of the consequences, she threw her purse at the man in hopes of maybe making him stumble. Or slow down. Or, more accurately, maybe River wasn't sure what to do and figured she had a good hand at slowing him down.
cultists
This is a scene that ought to be familiar to them by now. If it weren't for the fact that they know for a fact the killer is back in Los Angeles that they saw the men who did the deed moments after completing the act the Chakravanti might have thought their former mentor was still losing time to a psychotic past life.
The young cokehead trips and stumbles but he regains his footing and tears out into the hallway after his accomplices. Footsteps receding down the hallway and they have a bigger problem to deal with.
Though she has never met him before Ihsan doesn't have to make the world's greatest leap of logic to determine that the body lain hacked open between the bed and the window is the person who called River to ask her to meet him here. He is - was - in his late thirties. Stood average height and on the thin side. Had a darker complexion and curly hair. The three men subdued and attacked him. He fell face down and his intestines are splashed on the carpet beneath his body.
The corpse is still ninety-nine degrees. They must have arrived just after the attack occurred.
River Vasquez
[WP: O_O]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Ihsan Ghali
No body in the bathroom, but a letter and a business card, a folder that likely contained other things worth rifling through. Ihsan glanced over the letter-- something about a book and a meeting, a name on a business card. Without spending too much time examining things, curiosity honed in on bigger (bloodier) things right now, she shuffled the documents back into the folder. It was carried with her and sealed back up as she stalked her way through the rest of the hotel room until she found the body.
She winced at what she saw. Did not shudder for nausea or flinch for sorrow, per say, but for sympathy. That wasn't a very good death.
Ihsan hesitated, but for a moment, then turned and walked out of the hotel room. The knife was held carefully within the inner pocket of her coat, the folder tucked under one arm, and she closed the door behind her.
Up the hall was a chase. Ihsan watched, but for a moment or two, then glanced to her right instead.
Rather than pursuing the scene and her temporary roommate, Ihsan went and found a stairwell in the opposite direction to leave with.
River Vasquez
River returned to the room after she had gathered up her purse and tried to catch her breath and look like she was not just running down the hallway after people who would have more-than-likely stabbed the crap out of the two Chakravanti who rocked up to this particular place.
She comes back and exhales, ditches her purse at the door and goes to meet Ihsan over where she is standing because River has no idea what she is about to look at, could delude herself into any number of things but the rational part of her brain knows better. Knows that something terrible happened here and knows, to a certain extent, that she was supposed to expect some source for all of this blood.
And then she finds it.
She inhales sharply, covers her mouth with both hands to keep from making a sound. River does make a sound, though, and even though she isn't screaming or running or throwing up or having a nervous breakdown, she's very much distressed. She closes her eyes tightly, forces a shuddering breath from her lungs and lingers perhaps longer than she should. She knows this is going to be a crime scene, and it's the only thing that keeps her from doing something stupid like touching the body.
River leaves, has enough composure left to not start crying until she actually gets to a stairwell.
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