Doom Phone Call #7

Ashley McGowen] Nathan walks out of Ashley's apartment to go out drinking, and then there's silence. Alice is asleep on her couch - the look of someone asleep is always so young, vulnerable, like a child, no matter how they are upon waking - and Ashley has a shower to take. Her clothes (another pair ruined) are thrown into a garbage bag, and she watches the red water slough off her body and trickle down the drain. Oddly, she's one for cold showers. It's reminiscent of ocean water during a storm. The shock of it on her skin brings her back to herself.

It leaves bits of flesh behind. These, too, are thrown in the bag. Discarded. She washes her hair twice.

And when she's human again, she knows that she should call Kage. She can't quite plan out the words for what she wants to say. She isn't even sure she knows what she wants to say. Nathan asked her -why,- as though it was her responsibility to know why they shot a man to death on the street tonight, and though she knew there was little she could find to tell him right then. She was thinking about other things: a dark eyed Euthanatos leaving because he had his responsibilities, blood and Hell and the way Dylan looked opened up in front of her eyes (she wasn't supposed to see that), the woman on her couch, the fact that her apartment has just now turned into a refuge for people she doesn't wholly trust, the fact that Zane is still hiding in his corner.

She sits on the floor and hugs the dog, burying her face into the short hair near his neck, and for a long time sits in silence. And then she finds her phone and retreats to the bedroom so she won't disturb Alice.

Kage's phone rings.

[K. R. Jakes] Once.

And then Kage answers it. Her voice is calm and cool [smoke, cream]. It has a question in it that is not the question the word she says asks. "Hello?"

[Ashley McGowen] "Hi, Kage. It's Ashley." Her voice is not cool. There's an ever-so-faint tremble in it, and it rasps: raw and residue left from the scream she unleashed when Dylan burst apart in front of her and she found his life's blood all over her clothes, her shoes.

There is no preamble. "Dylan's dead."

[K. R. Jakes] The pause after that word (dead) stretches a little too long. Then: "Oh." Not empty, not full. Just a sound. "What happened? Who?"

[Ashley McGowen] Over at the other end of the phone, Ashley sucks in a breath, and it shudders a little at the end, as though her lungs are fluttering, stretching to full volume. "He was fighting Alice on the Mile, a few blocks from my place, and she had him down...he was crying...and I talked to him and told him we weren't with Jackson and Marla. And he stopped and it looked like I'd actually gotten through to him for a minute, and..."

She'd told Nathan that they did it out of mercy, but she'd doubted it even as she said it. Because that hesitance really -had- made her think that...well, she doesn't know why this disturbs her so deeply. Perhaps it's that kinship that she feels with Dylan after they walked together in Hell.

And her breath hitches on the exhale. Her voice is thick. "The Euthanatoi were there and one of them shot and then the rest did and he just sort of...well, someone hit him with a shotgun."

[K. R. Jakes] It sounds as if (for a moment [he was crying]) the woman on the other line was either not breathing at all or breathing very quietly. This becomes obvious when she draws a slow breath that Ashley can hear: not as steady, as steadying as she might (yearn) want. "Did he say anything before," she says, after that breath [swallow (clot, briar & ivy)]. "Was he still." That could sound like a complete sentence over the phone. It isn't, but it ends like one. "Wharil and Ashton? Gregor? He didn't try to cross?"

[Ashley McGowen] "He just...repeated what I said, that we weren't with them, and sort of...he was on his knees," Ashley says, "and I was talking to him and trying to...he stopped. Like he was willing to listen to me. Fucking clarity, for about five seconds, and then somebody fucking shot him."

Her voice rises in pitch and volume, here, and faintly Kage can hear Zane whimper. The Hermetic's voice is ripped forth from her guts and so many things are communicated in that last sentence: frustration, rage, grief. Despair. That she -nearly- got through to him. Almost, nearly, trying trying trying. That has been the past month. "He wasn't trying to get away. He was -listening.-"

[K. R. Jakes] The silence stretches on too long again. [Got soaked in moonlight.] This silence is full. This silence is a shadow where there should be no shadow. [I never thought I would find life easy. I was lately falling apart.] This is a fall of silence.

Then -- another breath [shallow]. "I'm certain he was." And she is; Kage has, from the very beginning, tried to talk to him. Before she knew what name he'd been known by, when he was just a monster come looming out of the shadows, surrounded by a Hellish aura of power, staring at her without blinking. A pause.

"Bad things happen."

[Ashley McGowen] Bad things happen. Eighteen year olds are thrown from their bicycles because they were too busy laughing and feeling the wind. People are deprived of the things they love the most (their souls) and it becomes a twisted semblance of its old self, discordant and crashing and unbearable to listen to. People you think will be with you forever leave because adaptation, change, happens. Visionaries are tortured, made into martyrs. They are shot to death by a former lover.

"Fuck that," is the seething response. "I'm sick of...we could have changed this. -I- could have."

[K. R. Jakes] "Hey," almost sharp, almost a thorn. "Maybe any one of us could have. I would have," she says, and listen. The Orphan's voice is clear and quiet and steady, but there is something in her tone. Not distant. But: something [lost translation] is there. Because she set her heart on, and she didn't get. Quieter: "I was going," she says, and stops. "But they still happen. I hate this. I hate this afterward."

[Ashley McGowen] "I hate this. And I hate that the world always goes to complete -shit- and all you can do is shoulder your fucking rifle and..." Ashley's voice is usually a pleasant thing, a sweet soprano with the echoes of the musician she once was. It is not so now. This snarling, gibbering fury is someone else. "I hate that joy doesn't last and people who don't deserve it get fucked over."

And exhale. And then she is Ashley again. Because she might hate it, but this is what gives life meaning. This is the drive to perfection. "But you're right. At least it's done with, even if it wasn't an optimal outcome."

[K. R. Jakes] "That's not always all you can do," Kage says, and she's fervent. "Maybe that's sometimes an easy option, maybe sometimes it's a card you play because it looks like it's got fortune and favor, but it's so rarely all you can do. It's hard. But there's always some way, some other road." Then she drops quiet, listening to the rest of what Ashley says; to the tone the Hermetic snarls it in. Beat. And: "That isn't exactly what I, but," (wistful) low, tired. "Yeah. It's done. At least he's not walking in Hell any longer. I hope he's out."

[K. R. Jakes] ooc: wait wait! have her say, instead: "At least he's not walking in that place any longer." and nix the rest of that; Hell and hope he's out and all. She won't say that outloud!

[Ashley McGowen] There are other roads than this. But damned if Ashley knows what they are. It's her way: her Will and the Will of the world come together and they -push,- and one loses. "No. At least he's out," Ashley agrees. Passion, anger still boils beneath her voice, drained but not yet deflated.

"I guess...a lot of this is over with. Now that we know Jackson and Marla were the Nephandi and we don't have them still running around."

[K. R. Jakes] "We don't know what happened. With him, we do. But not with them. Were they always fallen? Did they fall while they were here? Were they good, once? What about their Corruptor? What about anyone they did manage to make Fall," and it would be as hard to mistake the bitterness in her tone as it would be to mistake the bitterness in blood, when you've bit your tongue, "as they planned? What about the hunters -- they might be organized; they may have friends who will come investigate. And I may have looked pretty thoroughly through their," and, okay, something black simmers there, "things, but that doesn't mean the white fence house is clean of riddles. There's the conventionals, too. There's still memory. There's still dream. Over with?" Brief pause. "I seriously doubt it. There are just two less opinions to give the bad touch." Briefer pause. "Three less."

[Ashley McGowen] It's not over, says Kage, and she bullets all of the things that could still be out there in the chantry. When did Marla and Jackson go wrong? Were they always that way? Did anyone else in the chantry find out, the way Dylan did?

"You're right," Ashley says, and when she speaks again, her voice is muffled against fur. The convenient thing about having a pet: something, something warm and solid and alive, is always there when you need a hug. Perhaps Justine knew what she was doing. "I guess we're still going to have to watch out for things along those lines. More than usual, I mean. And...there are probably one or two people here in the city that we should watch in case." She thinks of Rene. It's a wonder it was Dylan and not her.

"I wish," Ashley begins, and then stops, uncertain. But then she presses on. "After everything with Dylan, everyone sort of split up without...and I sort of wish that we'd at least -talked-..." And perhaps she is thinking of someone specific. But she adds, "I guess there'll be time to get everyone together though."

[K. R. Jakes] "Do you mean fate's bloodyfingered," she says, begins to resay the nickname Ashley's heard her use for the Euthanatoi once but doesn't finish it. Evidently, fate's bloodyfingered (possessive [noun]) is enough of a name as far as Kage is concerned. Was Ashley upset that they disappeared?

[Ashley McGowen] "...Yeah," Ashley says, after a pause that puzzles over what exactly Kage means. She's heard her use it before, when...oh yes. In conjunction with her old cabal. She'd thought Kage met Hannibal at the time, but there weren't any other Hermetics. "I mean, they just showed up as a group and all fired at once, and Ashton and Rene, they're like that, but..."

[K. R. Jakes] "They were looking," Kage says, and she sounds perplexed. But she (thinks she) gets it: "Did you think Wharil would pause if he saw the nameless 'crow," a pause, again, and wherever she is, Kage's eyes fall closed and she finishes this conversation with her eyes shut, "hesitate. Listen?"

[Ashley McGowen] "No, I...he's a Euthanatos. I know how he sees things," Ashley says after a moment. "And that he thought it was a better way than whatever we could have thought of doing. It's more...all three of them showed up, and I didn't know he was planning with them, and he and -I- are the damned cabal." Frustration, there. Regret, perhaps, that she understands that Wharil would not have acted differently, but there's no anger there. "And I...would've liked to talk to the three of them after regardless."

[K. R. Jakes] Another long silence. This one is longer than it would normally be (perhaps because she's tired; perhaps because she's sad; perhaps because she's thinking).

"You," and then, Ashley can hear this: a deep, deep, deep intake of breath, as if she were a bellows instrument, as if she were starved for it (air [life] help). Then she exhales, slow, steady, controlled, and says:

"It's still after."

[Ashley McGowen] "Yeah," Ashley says, and this is quiet. Because it's after, but it's late, and, well..."I guess I just. I don't know." And the weight of feelings she herself can't articulate until she's figured them out, a heavy pause over on the other end of the phone.

"I just thought we...I guess it doesn't matter. We'll talk."

[K. R. Jakes] "Good," she says, and it may be remarkable. The nameless 'crow is dead. They talked about it. And now, they're talking about afterward. That's fine. Kage doesn't sound sad and she doesn't sound happy (oh, no) and she doesn't even sound hollow, not right now, just steady, just deliberate. Perhaps a little slow; after all. It's been a rough few days. "I should go. Thank you for calling me." There it is -- the smoke [stoppered, dark of moon; silver, burnished by heat], the shadow.