Dresden Files: Caught in the Undertow

Bartholomew Dee

Spoiler:

Street Magicians might not be able to hurl gouts of fire around like Wizards, but they do have honed reflexes: Bartholomew catches the coin in midair, notes it as a nickel, then stuffs it in his pocket.

"See, that right there? That's textbook evil behavior!" Bartholomew shouts at Nicodemus's departing back.

He mimics Nicodemus's resonant baritone.

"Do take care of her for me? I'll be seeing you soon? I mean, Christ!"

He turns to Murphy.

"The coin throwing bit was weird, though. Is that guy, a Demon, or something? He did seem to have a thing for ironic whistling."

Murphy
She turns and stares wildly, then noting the coin is only ordinary, she sighs in relief, the tension in her shoulders relaxing a little. "Possesed. Or not. He's bad news whichever one it is." She ansers distractedly, seeming relieved.
"Well, looks like Kincaid is the least of our problems." She mutters, replacing the sword, and turning to look at the crime scene again. "Look, it's been a long day for you kid. Go find a hotel, have a good nights sleep, and come and see me again in the morning."

Fix
"Sleep." He says in a tone that doesn't even remotely sound human, and suddenly she colapses like a puppet with it's strings cut, her brain instantly switched off. He sighs, his head feeling like it was pressed in a vice, and his muscles feeling weak and floppy. He overdid it a little. She'll be asleep for a while. Not quite Sleeping Beauty levels, but she won't be getting up for much anytime soon.
But that should, at the very least, solve the current problem at hand. "I'll lie her somewhere in the Summer Court, and have someone pick through her brain and remove all the memories of her father. We'll wed her to a lord or something as a concubine. She'll be happy." He says, by way of explanation at her fate.

Nicodemus

He waits at the site about Chicago Pile-1, nodding briefly at some of the students passing by on the way to their dormitories.

It's getting close to ten.

Nicodemus
Marcone is alone this time, dressed in tan suit and fiddling idly with his cuffs. He is unarmed, and given his seeming lack of bodyguards this means there is a sniper somewhere near by taking a bead on you.
"Good to see you. Your day passed pleasently, I take it?" he says warmly. "You will be pleased to know that Elaine was passed to a private facility, well out of the public eye, where assasains will be hard pressed to find her and finnish the job they started. You have unfinnished buisness with her, afterall."

Nicodemus

"Yes, I really do. The death of Harry Dresden was most...unexpected. The discovery of Ms. Mallory really was quite fortuitous."

There is something...awe-inspiring about that slightly raised platform. Plain concrete, and a bronze statue. But you can feel it around the area. Here was a place of discovery, where man first cracked the atom. The atrocities at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the theories of MAD and détente, the meltdowns at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and in Japan, the promise of new energy and the hope of a new era...one could feel the history, could feel the latent power of the place.

"As to our arrangement...have you considered who you wish to act for yourself?"

Marcone
He takes a moment to appreciate it. There was a reason the supernatural world hated and feared this place. The moment was significant for many reasons, as history showed, but most of all, it had been when mankind had truly stopped being victims. When they had shown a power that nobody else could emulate.
Of course, such power was and always would be a two-edged sword.
"I had a certain respect for Dresden. And while I did see his death coming, I find myself a little dissapointed by it. But the world moves on."
He spreads his arms. "As for your proposition, well I believe I shall go myself. It seems Vlad has over extended himself, and is now... somebody elses problem, shall we say. However, I suspect in the near future it would be prudent to dissapear for a while."

Nicodemus

He inclines his head.

"But of course. Ms. Raith and Ms. Mallory will be joining us. And if I am successful in my current endeavor, the good Knight Sanya will be as well."

He stares at the sculpture for a moment before speaking once more.

"This site is one of the best places in Chicago for focusing magical energies, either for weal or woe. I know the greatest site for casting protective magic, for focusing and fueling one's better desires and aspirations, for empowering the entirety of the human race. Yet, I have been unable to pinpoint the exact point that is best suited for destructive energies, for curses and plagues. There have simply been too many disasters for one to find the greatest site."

Marcone
"I am affraid I cannot help you there. Humans are a violent group afterall. What is significent to some is ancient history to others." He replies calmly, although his eyes flash at the threat to his city.
"As for Sanya, I have his vow not to intefere as long as we are working to the same purposes. Quite easy to extract, actually. I suspect that will be the extent of his co-operation, however." He pauses. "You seem determined to cover all bases, don't you. What do you anticipate?"

Nicodemus

"I anticipate that my wife, who has lived perhaps three fewer centuries than I have, has prepared an adequate defense for any place that she desires to retreat to. Seeing as she has always used the coins for short-term minions as opposed to giving the coins to those with the greatest potential gain, I would anticipate at least fifteen, if not more Denarians under her command."

Nicodemus strokes the sculptures side, running his slim fingers over the worn bronze.

"The greatest site, by the way, for casting protective magic, is a place that every child in this country dreams of, that every spirit soars at the thought of. Tranquility Base."

Sartorius

He backs away from the sphere surprise showing on his face from the fact that the girl has such a powerful artifact. "Okay who are you and like and what are you looking for here? Besides threats don't tend to phase me, however propositions do." He knows he is playing a dangerous game here. He has been doing that his whole life and just like before he 's gonna let it ride. It may be his undoing but he is hoping for the best.

Sanya

Sanya stares at Fix with incredrulity.

"What?" He says. "No, don't do that!"

Bartholomew Dee

He sighs. "Right, Officer." He walks off, hands stuck inside his pocket, bowler hat perched jauntily on his head.

All in all, he cut a very distinctive figure.

Which was why he promptly turned his coat inside out, revealing a different, more mute color. His hat comes off his head, vanishing inside his coat, revealing a short haircut. His posture changes, becoming more shuffling, casual, shoulders slouched.

Robert Houdin once said that a Magician is an Actor playing the Part of a Magician. This effectively means that good Magicians are good actors: they know how to get people's attention...and how to not be noticed.

While trailing Nicodemus, he keeps far off, prioritizing stealth over the possibility of losing his target. His pace is slanted, perpetually bearing him in a diverging path from the Demon Possessed Maniac's without actually doing so. His 'performance' is superb.

Still, he's making a huge gamble. He's gambling that Nicodemus is a being so used to magical scrying and divination that he wouldn't have considered a physical tail in this time and circumstance. He's gambling that Nicodemus dismissed him as a powerless mortal. He's gambling that his act is good enough. He's also gambling that the audacity of trying to tail the devious, clever, Nicodemus merely a few minutes after seeing him will help.

For once, it seemed, such gambles pay off. A quarter mile off from where Marcone and Nicodemus chat, Bartholomew crouches behind a thick bush quarry, watching them through gaps in the shrub with a set of binoculars.

I swear I know that other guy. Bartholomew thinks to himself.

Ivy

"A threat is merely a negative proposition, in which either a less negative outcome or the status quo is offered in exchange for an act of service or a given individual's inaction."

The sphere moves suddenly, too quickly for Sartorius's eyes to see. It lands on the ground between the White Court Vampire's legs for a brief second, and with a sizzle eerily reminiscent of fried meat, a perfect hemisphere of pavement was gone. Simply gone.

"In this case, your life in exchange for leaving me to my business. Rest assured that I have no compunctions about destroying you, should the need arise."

Fix
He turns and glares. "She doesn't want redemption. So much for free will. So kill her then." When Sanya doesn't raise his sword, Fix shrugs and draws his. He presses it on the side of her neck, right in the hollow, then turns and looks at Sanya.

"No? Well are you going to carry her around in a straight jacket for the rest of your life, knowing she'll rip out your throat if you don't watch her every second? Are you going to do what he did, and take advantage of her vulnerbility until she doesn't understand what she's doing? No? Then let me give her this. She'll be happy. She won't have any free will, but she doesn't now either. She doesn't want free will, and you want to prove a point, not solve anything. What if she does drop the coin? Who is going to look after her, give her money and a place to live? Who is going to teach her to look after herself? You? Can you raise a girl and teach morality in between hunting demons? This is the real world. Things don't happen the way they should. At least my way, she won't suffer. That's more then all the redemption in the world can give her, Sanya." He replaces his sword, but doesn't stop glaring.

Deidre

He's made two mistakes, now.

The first is the continued use of mental magic on Deidre; over such a short period, Xandriel has managed to figure out how to counter it via Hellfire.

The second is breaking the circle physically; the moment Fix's sword crosses the border of the circle, it loses any metaphysical power it once had.

So when it turns out that Deidre was merely playing possum, as it were, and her own, iron hair-tendrils snake upwards to wrap around the Summer Knight's neck, Fix really can't do much about it. His power was derived from the Fae, and iron was crippling to them; he can't work any forces against the iron.

More pressing is the fact that the two are now in a stalemate; blades are literally only a hairsbreadth away from someone dying.

"Don't move, Knight. Either of you."

Bartholomew Dee

There is a tap on his shoulder, as if Dee was touched by an ice-cold finger. Yet behind him, all he can see is a writhing, boiling mass of shadow...

"Mr. Dee!" Nicodemus calls out.

"Would you care to join us?"

Sartorius

A bead of sweat runs down his head at the fact that she chose to aim that thing BETWEEN HIS LEGS! Ehem, anyways Sartorius sighs and rubs his face as he does not feel like putting up with this right now. He then says, "Look at least let me accompany you inside. If your with me they will let you in without hassel and, no offence, I would like to have some employees at the end of the night."

Kincaid
They came for him.
They dragged him between them. There was nothing comforting in the near dark. He saw things, shadows, shapes, but with no light he was almost blind to the glimpses of an underworld that didn't bear witnessing. The thugs bullied him, stumbling and staggering, down the tunnel.
He had no idea where they were taking him until they shoved him through a door and into a long, lit tunnel.
Ahead he could voices, cheering, banging and stamping feet. Kincaid's ears twitched as he listened intently. It was impossible to gauge the size of the crowd, but its bloodthirsty nature was all too plain. They bayed for blood.
The wet smack of steel on flesh rang out, and then there was silence. The sudden surge of noise from the spectators drowned out the screams of the downed man. Dead or dying, Kincaid guessed.
He could picture it all too perfectly in his head. Bared teeth, pounding blows from the fists, the spray of blood, jabs and counters, then the finish, the winner hitting again and again until he was pounding wet chunks of bone into the floor. There was an aura of death in this underground stadium. Men who moments before had strode out to conquer the world, came back in stretchers, or didn't come out at all. There was no glory in this fight. it was a lie, the greatest one of all.
He could hear them calling to him, although they didn't know his name. Th cry of fight, fight, fight echoed back to him. Kincaid strode out into the pit amid roars from the banks of the spectators. The pit was huge, hammered out of the concrete. Huge iron bars ringed the pit, there was no easy way to escape. The seats were filled, like a stadium. Thousands of hungry faces stared down at him as he walked into the center of the ring.
He was somewhat healed, although his right leg still twinged and threatened to fold with every step, whenever he put weight on it. He endured. His face was still mashed and tender, and his skin was pale where it wasn't yellow or purple with internal bruising. He thought of bleeding them, but without the tools he'd only make matters worse.
His opponent towered over him, with a brawlers face, arms like prize hams, a barrel chest, and broad shoulders. One side of his face was caked with blood, but he didn't seem to care or even notice.
Stepping forward, he brought back his fist and slammed a devastating cross. Kincaid, with uncanny timing, leaned back and swayed out of the way, the fist missing him by inches. Again the giant brought out his fist, and again Kincaid dodged, barely seeming to move but effortlessly avoiding the blows. The crowd was silent, anticipating a finish, but Kincaid ignored them, circling around the man, moving on his wounded leg as little as possible.
Finally, the big brawler lost all patience and threw everything in an uppercut. Kincaid stepped aside, and the man howled in total agony as his blow drives his fist directly into the iron bar, breaking with a sickening snap, leaving him grasping it in agony, his face white with shock.
Not giving a word, Kincaid stepped past him and walked back into the tunnel back to his cell. He'd made his point.

Marcone
He looks over at the newcomer and sighs. "I would rather not kill you, and put your body in a car compactor. So I want you to be honest with me. Why are you here, and what did you overhear?"

Bartholomew Dee

{Do you really have to instantly Sniff me out like that, Industrious? I was pulling out all the stops narration-wise to try and make sure I succeeded at something interesting for once.

And can Nicodemus's shadows really stretch up to a quarter mile away from his body? That's how far away Bartholomew is. Bartholomew can't even hear the two guys from a distance: he's just observing them via binoculars.}

Sanya

Sanya bats Fix's sword away from Deirdre's neck with his own.

"My rebuttal has three points. 1: I won't like it, but I will kill her if she is determined to carry through with her evil ways. 2: Are you really so foolish as to think you can change who a person is by changing their memories? You've spent too much time among the Fae. 3: The whole point of this is that it is her choice, her life. She must choose to be free from the Fallen, to become something better than what she is: no one else can make that choice but her."

Then Deirdre's tendrils sweep out and go for Fix's throat. Sanya lifts up "Esperacchius".

"What, then, is your choice, Deirdre Archeleone?" Sanya asks quietly.

[...good point. A hint of forgetfulness, a touch of amnesia, and a dash of retcon it is.]

{Thanks, Indy. To be fair to you, Nicodemus is a very powerful person that's 'been around for a long, long year'. Still, I appreciate you allowing Bartholomew Dee the opportunity to successfully tail Nicodemus up to this point.

Of course, if he continues to tail Nicodemus after this point, the odds of the Old Lion noticing him go up dramatically.}

Fix
"I don't care to change her. I just don't want to kill her. Particularly not because of some half-cocked moral absolutism. It's not all black and white, you know." He replies, the sword not moving as Sanya went to bat it away. Which, as it turns out, is just as well. If they spent a bit more time worrying about the demon instead of bickering amongst each other, they'd be in far, far less trouble.

"Dedire, if you don't remove these-" He taps a strand of razor hair with his free hand "I'll have to hurt you. Neither of us want that." There is fear in his voice, fear and a sort of resolve, but you don't think he's bluffing.

((Colesign: Write Dee as being on the 2nd floor of the library. There really aren't any bushes around))

Deirdre

The hair doesn't move. In fact, it draws slightly tighter; not enough to draw blood, but Fix can now feel it pressing against his skin.

"You intended to rape my mind and sell me into sexual slavery. The only thing that is keeping you alive is that your blade is next to my own neck."

Ivy

She ignores Sartorius, and enters the club, mordite shard bobbing next to her as she walks through the entrance.

Sartorius

As she tries to do so a large and beefy man walks in front of her. Bryan, the bouncer. "Sorry little girl no kids allowed." Seeing the impending danger Sartorius rushes forward almost in a comical manner slidding to a stop complete with dustclouds between the two. He then says, "Don't worry Bryan she's with me she's uh VIP." The bouncer looks strangley at his boss before shrugging and standing aside letting both Ivy and Sartorius in. One crisis averted.

Cowl
He stood atop Vlad's tower, like the grim specter of death waiting for the inevitable, his black robes blowing in the wind.
Tower - Cowl laughed at that.
It was no more a tower then what had just occurred below could be called a duel. Both had the trappings of their names, but lacked the soul so integral to their originals. Little more then pale copies, like so much of Vlad's realm.
If he won, there would be more monsters like Vlad. Rule of the strong, a return to old night. But that wasn't his problem. Why should it be?
So he stood there, and waited for Vlad to arrive.

Fix
"I'm in no danger." He replies, staring down, and sounding like he means it. His tone is flat. Disinterested. Scary, actually. Though he does gulp. He prefers to negotiate when he is the only one with the gun.

"As for your rights, Sanya's the one who cares about that. As far as I'm concerned, my job is to get rid of you, so you can't hurt anyone else. People who have families, like you. If that means selling you into what you call slavery, though I prefer the term 'Lotus Eater Machine', well, so be it." As he talks, his sword begins to glow with a dull light, and a scent of fresh cut grass, baking bread and loamy soil begins to emit from it.

Then he swings it, fast and hard, leaving a trail of light behind, in the same instant she tightens, slicing deep into the meat of his neck. But his target is not her neck, but the metallic strands themselves. Their is a hiss, and she is given an impromptu haircut. However, the effects of the iron on his magic leaves the sword reduced to shards, falling apart where the hair touched it.

Fix staggers back, blood dripping down from his throat, desperately sucking for air, choking and gasping and making the damage worse. It was painful, but he is just fast enough to keep her from tightening her hair too much. No doubt it will only scar a little. Her hair is already growing back.

Thomas
And then she was hit by a cold feeling, a total and complete arousal that left her gasping. Fix had cut away her defenses, and the demon had given him too much focus. She was in no state to even recognize the magic before he hit her with all he could muster.

The vampire was pressed against her back. His mouth nuzzled her throat, and slow kisses, strokes of his tongue that made her quiver and gasp in need. His eyes weren't blue-grey anymore. They were silver, like mirrors, and coldly inhuman. The spectacle was disturbing, to say the least.

Ivy

"Take me to the cages."

The mordite shroud is still hovering beside her.

Deirdre

Let me have a go

So...good...

Can't we share? Please?

Mine...

You promised we would share everything...

...

She's very vulnerable to Thomas's assault; her Fallen relies on her free will, and thus cannot save her from the White Court vampire's hunger. Deirdre's shuddering at the man's touch.

Her soul tastes slightly of Hellfire. It's...interesting.

Sartorius

He leads her to the underground fight club through a flight of stairs he asks, "How did you know about those", he asks completely serious. The comedy that was in his face and posture before completely obliterated. "Not to mention you still haven't told me what the hell you were looking for. I want answers."