Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

[Chibichibi]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Eve frowned at the scene. "Does any of this seem unusual to you? I mean, it's fair unusual all the way, but something is... off about this. Can you tell how old the bodies are? When they were killed and such? They don't look like they just got shot." She shook her head trying to get a more firm grasp on her thoughts. "This was a set up. Obviously. But it doesn't look like the Kine were jumped on because they were here. It looks... almost perfect. Like someone took a photo and deliberately blurred the lines." She looked at the two of them. "Did any of that make sense?" Then she snorted, "Of course they could have chosen someone better to frame with me. It's not like Claire and I get along that well." She grinned a little up at Claire. "You think it has something to do with me standing up for you at the last meeting? We pissed a lot of people off with our bloodsucking Brady Bunch routine."

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"Bodies aren't that old. They were alive when I got here, and I was here only shortly before you arrived. Unless someone else was pretending to be the family until we got here. As for why the both of us... I don't know," Claire said with a frown, flicking her tongue against one of her fangs, a slight habit she'd picked up since her embrace.

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"It's really quite possible," Eve mused. "Did you hear anything else before we shot out of here like a bat outta hell?"

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"I heard two blasts, shotgun. A moment of silence, then a scream and another shotgun blast. That was it," Claire said leaning her head back as she thought. She should be all over this... her instincts as a cop were fading, being replaced with something else. She wasn't sure if it was something to do with being Kindred, or Gangrel, or just her.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Once River sees that the two kindred in the group weren't going to group up together, she takes a step back and thinks on the situation a bit. The one with the gang bandanna is closer, and probably has spent enough time with them to not want it to be wasted. Hence, should be 'afraid to die', for the masquerade's sake. The other one seems a bit off his rocker, and probably not too worried about the same. Makes him a higher priority to get a hold of, but practically anything she could do to do so would make her breach the masquerade as well...

Making her decision, she came up behind the one with the brick, waiting till all eyes were towards Fletch, then attempting to grab the brick hand and pull it behind his back while pointing a gun at the side of his face with another. "Hey there." She says with a snarl. "I'm River, nice to meet you. You may or may not have heard stories about me, depending on who else you hang out with besides this little gang, but rest assured I am more than willing to pull this trigger if need be. nobody wants that I'm sure, so I'll get straight to the point. This shop here is under my protection, panty-waist suits running around it or not, so if you and your buddies would do us the favour of fucking off, you can keep your head for one more night. Deal?"

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Eve hrmed and turned to Jack. "I'm not making a deal because I didn't do anything. You want proof of why I was out here? I'll take you back to my apartment and you can listen to the message. I refuse to deal on something I'm innocent of."

 

[dmronny]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

After Claire returns the spent shell to his hand Jack shakes his head at the offered shotgun. Standing up while Eve tries to explain what she sees, he shakes his head as though he doesn't really understand. Once the other two have finished he looks around one last time before shrugging his shoulders and walking away.

"Suit yerselves, just thought you might want to play it safe."

Claire watches as Jack starts to leave and it suddenly occurs to her that the scream after the first two shots was female.
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The guy responds with a smirk back to Fletch, "Yes as a matter of fact I do run this neighborhood and it may be your property but that can be changed easily enough. Especially when you start inviting unwanted and nosy elders into the area. Now why don't you com..."

The other kindred drops the brick and gasps as he's quickly surprised by River, interrupting the other guy in the process who looks back with an annoyed look on his face. The gang also turns to look and only stop from attacking River when the vampire with the gun to his head holds out his hand. He then hesitates for a second as he looks toward the other vampire with the gang.

"Shit....a-all right deal. Back off boys this is one girl we don't want to be picking a fight with."

The other Kindred turns around fully to get a look at River as the gang members who are starting to back away from the group.

"Damn you just can't dominate good help these days can you. So who do we have here, hmm, the sheriff or maybe the sweeper."

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The girl is indeed beyond hope when Izzy checks over the body but she thinks that they may have lucked out. She can't really tell but it doesn't look like the girl died because of the nossie or at least not because he fed off of her.

The nossie listens to her question and scratches his head before saying.

"Not really sure who they mean by the man, but I think they mean older bossy people. The only one they is scared of really is the Russian guy though, they say he wants to get rid of us all. The rats is scary too, or at least they scare me."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"Now now, you all stay nice and put. Wouldnt want me getting twitchy, eh? Ooh, archetypes, I can play along with that." River says with a grin, swaying back and forth a bit as if deciding. Inside, she was berating the guy for being such an idiot. Dominate good help? I should finish him off, do the masquerade a favour. Moron...

"How about an ex-con, good samaritan? No real offices to speak of, but everyone's more than happy to let me run around and deal with scumbags, keep their own hands clean. Started the trend by dealing with most of the scum i used to hang with, who were much worse than you guys, trust me." She explains, then gives her captive's arm a little jerk, to get his attention. She immediately follows this by speaking, in a strangely friendly tone, given the circumstances. "How much do you like this guy, anyways? Doesn't wear your colours, for one. Doesn't seem to much care for the 'game' either, I think. How long has he been hanging with you?"

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"Something feels off... really off. Jack, does it look like this girl would have been able to get a scream off? Because it was a female scream I heard, meaning there might be a fourth victim," Claire said scrunching her eyes closed, trying to push past these new instincts to just run in the woods and hunt and savour her freedom.

These people had their freedoms taken. She let out a small snarl, and looked up at the sheriff.

"What kind of deals were you talking about earlier?"

 

[Rule 34]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Fletch sneers and cracks his knuckles. "Heel, boy," he commands as he slowly advances towards the edge of his property, Bubba by his side growling at the retreating gang members. "Hey River, didn't know you're that infamous."

 

[Copper]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of rats myself," Izzy says in a slightly conspiratorial tone, like she's confiding a secret to him, just identifying with him to help him grow a little more at ease. She looks at the girl again and frowns some. "She's...beyond us being able to help. I believe you didn't mean to hurt her. That it was an accident." She huffs out another little sigh. "It might be best if we leave and let the humans find her." She remembers that he was craddling her, trying to get her to wake up. She wasn't exactly certain how much DNA vampires gave off any longer, but if half of what River had told them about the Nosferatu were true, he'd hopefully be protected among his own clan, should anything come of the investigation. Again, not that she liked the idea of leaving the body, but letting someone else be the witness might be good. And if it looked like a normal accident, no need for Vincent to get involved.

She holds out her hand to the other Kindred. "Let's get you out of here. We'll see about getting you fed somewhere else and get you back for now. With this happening, might be best to lie low for a little while. Don't want to give Vincent a reason to look your way."

 

[dmronny]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Jack stops and looks around again before shaking his head, "I doubt it they look more like they died without knowing what hit them. So if you heard a female scream that means we may have a serious problem."

Turning he takes off running towards the fort, turning his head as he runs. "We'll talk about deals later, right now we need to find out that girl dead or alive. I'll check the fort and the entrance road should be covered by now, so you two start looking elsewhere."
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The human gang members stop when River says to hold still, though they look more confused then intimidated. The captive vampire in her grasp looks as though he could shit himself if that were possible. He's not a familiar anarch but he's at least been around town long enough to learn who not to mess with. As he feels his arm jerked he responds trying to get just enough bravado into it that he doesn't lose the respect of the others, but also trying not to piss off River anymore.

"I don't like him but he's good, too good fer me at least. Far as I know he's only been here a week, leastwise I only been dealing with him fo that long. Don't even know who he belongs with but he can be one hell of a persuasive son of a bitch."

The other kindred smiles almost bored while River explains who she is. When the captive starts to go through his spiel he turns around and starts walking towards Fletch

"Yes apparently the little cam whore has quite the fearful reputation doesn't she. Doubt if she really has an inkling of what's going on though, much like yourself, whichever useless clan it is you belong to."
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The nossie looks pretty crestfallen that the girl is dead but he does seem to understand at least. Shaking his head in agreement when Izzy suggests that they let the humans find the body. When the hand is offered he looks confused for a second before reaching up to take it.

"I er yeah I guess it was an accident, I forgot to hide from her. So how come you didn't run or freak out when you saw me. Most other kindred do that first time they meet me. Oh and Vincent is scary Russian guy I think so I definitely don't want to have problems with him. I'm not hungry right now and I usually feed in my home anyways so we can go there now if you want."

 

[Copper]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"I like to think I'm made of sterner stuff," Izzy tells him with a bit of a grin. She doesn't tell him that it was his eyes that helped keep her calm, gave her something else to focus on besides his appearance. That, and the corpse helped keep her attention, too. Now that he's about all she has to focus on, she does try to keep her gaze up, though she takes to glancing around in the clearing, making sure neither of them left anything telling behind, even accidentally. "Besides, I know what it's like to be confused and out of your element now and again."

She gets the Nossie out of the clearing, though she slows her pace a little, turning to call back. "Ray? You gonna come with?" She rarely uses a shorthand of his name, mostly when she's being cautious.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"If you're going to stick around Eve, lets head down to the water," Claire said, moving towards the canoe launch she had spotted earlier. Her eyes swept across the ground, nostrils flaring as she sniffed for any traces of blood, sweat, urine... anything. Peeking down into the water, she wondered if perhaps the girl was there.

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"I'm just as eager to clear my name as you are," she said following Claire down and checking for trouble. "The thing I don't understand, is that we're newbies. We don't have enough influence anywhere to make someone want to kill us. So why go through all the trouble of framing a pair of neonates with nothing in common?"

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"We do have one thing in common... we both wanted to kill some Sabbat the other night. So, if they think getting rid of some of the more open mouthed anti-Sabbat kindred then they might be able to garner some more power," Claire said before getting down on her belly and looking beneath the wooden canoe launch.

"Of course this is just theory... maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to kill more of em," she said, voice slightly muffled.

 

[dmronny]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Claire could see nor hear anything out of the ordinary as she and Eve made their way down towards the boats. She does notice the scent of blood but she can't tell much about it as her senses are just not good enough for that.

Looking in the water and under the canoe launch Claire notices nothing unusual, nor does Eve. Taking a look at the breadth of the park it occurs to Eve that they're going to have to find a better way of searching or they'll never find the person.
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The nossie doesn't seem to notice that Izzy isn't really looking at him, he seems more like he's just happy that someone is paying attention to him. He does shy away a little as Izzy calls to Raven. Thankfully Raven doesn't do anything to scare him away further making sure to pop out at a decent distance from them and calling out that he'll catch up after watching the rear so to speak.

As they near the path where they had started the nossie slows down as if worried. Looking ahead, the path seems clear as Izzy looks around to make sure that no one is ahead.

 

[Copper]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Izzy nods to her sire. "All right. See you soon, then." She'll lead the Nossie away, though she's also following his lead, slightly, since they're obviously heading back to where he needs to go and he's the only one that knows the way. She keeps an eye out somewhat, but she's not being overly alert.

"What's your name?" she asks him once the clearing is a little ways behind them.

Hopefully the path they're on doesn't take them too close to the college, but once he slows down some, she starts glancing around a bit more. "Something wrong?" She slows her own pace, glancing once behind them and then seeming to be double-checking the path ahead, a little more on the alert now, especially given he seems a bit on the worried side.

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

"I smell blood... can't tell where from though, or if its even human," Claire said darkly as she got to her feet, nostrils flaring as she sniffed at the air.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Fletch growls and raises his huge hand, pointing a finger at the approaching kindred. "Listen here, shithead. You take a step on my property, and I'll ram an exhaust pipe so far up your ass it'll pierce your heart and send you into torpor. Have fun living that down, got that?" 'course, all the exhaust pipes are back in the garage. Bubba would have to distract him for a moment.