Clean Up Crew

[Dancing Dragon] Any Vajrapani knows this - there is always death, waiting. It isn't a distant fear, but an ever-present reality. Li Daiyu had seen nearly every one of her friends and loved-ones fall in battle. One of them she had killed herself (and she had never forgiven herself for that.) Because of this, every day was a blessing. Every moment of peace treasured. And when the end of this life inevitably came for her, she was not surprised. And she was not afraid.

The shotgun blast had nearly killed her in an instant. It left a great gaping hole in her chest, and blood dripped and pooled, splattering those near her as she fought. And fight she did - despite her injuries. She never lost focus, and never hesitated. (She never had. She never would.) That the rest of her companions would live was all that she ever asked for.

But there was only so much harm that one body could withstand, and eventually, an effect cast from one of the nephandi robbed her of the last bit of strength she had remaining. No longer a blur of movement, she suddenly stopped... and fell. Cold. The world was distant. Blood seeped from her chest. Her eyes fluttered. The world was black. A breath - ragged.

And then, Ashley. She couldn't see her, but she could feel. And she reached up and touched the Adept's cheek, very softly. "I'm sorry," she whispered. And then, even more quietly... "Ni you wo de xin. I will remember you, always."

And then the last breath disappeared from her lungs, and her hand fell.

But it was not the end. Only another beginning.

[Ashley McGowen] They just had lunch together, and they were supposed to go and look at the library. Ashley'd thought about telling her about Catherine, suggesting that she go down to speak with the node. That's the way this afternoon was supposed to go.

She has an answer that she wants to give, but there isn't time. Daiyu's hand falls. Ashley bows her head.

She doesn't collapse in sobs there on the ground. She doesn't fall over the body. She doesn't walk off and sit on the curb and stare emptily at the sky. Maybe she wants to do all of those things.

Ashley is an Adept of the Order of Hermes, and conflict hones a Will to perfection. She stands up. And, clear-eyed (for now) she steps around the body and walks up to the doors of the chantry. She swore she'd protect the node.

[Emily Littleton] There are moments that Emily will replay, over and over again, for a lifetime. Moments like this. Moments like the flicker of balefire as it closed on her skin. Moments like the scream of a boy child who was pressed beneath the heavy body of his assailant (his mother). These are the things that shape and press and force her Awakened life into the role she will play, later, when she is done being just an understudy on this stage.

This is the first Traditionalist she has seen fall in battle. For a moment, Emily doesn't believe she's gone. She waits for Daiyu to pick herself back up, put her insides back together like Ashton did. Gasp for air once more after the slip-slide of honey smooths over her lips. But there is no flicker-rebirth of life, and there is no charm to save her, and there is nothing the Apprentice can do. Nothing but lower the (useless) firearm she carries to her side -- still ready (ever ready) -- and approach with wariness and respect.

She glances to Alex as she moves, but keeps her attention on Ashley. If she were smarter about all of this, perhaps Emily would think to watch the door. Or look down the street for another van, another wave to the assault. Just now she is numb, and the numbness stills her tongue and deadens her thoughts. It is stock-silent in her head, behind the thin thrum of tightly-controlled panic, and the slackness in Daiyu's frame and features is at once horrifying and abstractly fascinating.

Ashley steps toward the Chantry, but Emily stays with Daiyu. She will not leave her alone; and she will not load this body into someone's jeep like a thing. Like a vessel broken and profane once more.

She looks to see if Alex is following the Dean in.

[Alexander Turnquist] The gun in Alex's hand doesn't go limp, it doesn't fall weakly to the ground in shock. His strength and focus doesn't abandon him with the fall of Daiyu, or Li as she allowed him to call her. He's quick to reload, flicking shells out onto the ground from his revolver and sliding new ones in. He'll worry about collecting them up afterwards. He keeps the gun trained on the head of the nearest Nephandus while he makes his way closer to Daiyu and Ashley.

He steps over the writing and bloodied forms of cops, strewn around like play things. Finally he's there, just in time to watch the life go out of the Akashic. They had their differences the two of them, but it is perhaps he who understands most here. He doesn't weep for her, the wheel has turned as it does for everyone, this life was no more important than any life before it and the multitude of lives that will come after it.

Alex waits a moment with Daiyu when Ashley steps away. He looks down upon her lifeless corpse. Perhaps they would have argued about him calling her this, perhaps she would have disagreed that they are brothers in philosophy and religion. But their beliefs entwine so much and when it comes to this, when it comes to death. They are one and the same. He says as much to her, though he knows she is gone already.

"Go with peace Chela" And he follows after Emily and Ashley.

[Red Right Hand] The house is quiet as Ashley steps inside. It's dark and empty. The lights aren't on, and besides herself, there is no one present inside it. Not, at least, on the ground floor. It gives that strange sense of a normal home. Just a lifeless home in the suburbs. The kind of thing that makes you double-guess and wonder what are you really protecting, especially on a day like this when the risks become ever so clear.

But at the same time, she feels it. That energy, the vibrant sensation. Devotion. The kind of sensation that strikes true in dark days like this. It doesn't feel dim, doesn't feel weak, doesn't feel tainted. In fact, the very opposite. It's stronger than most of them have probably ever felt it. It soaks through the house today as though a sign of something.

If and when she slowly ventures down to the Node, the sensation becomes almost overpowering. The aftertaste and Resonance of Quintessence mark everything in the surrounding. As though extreme amounts had been unleashed. And the Nephandi lay, not victories and not in the process of a ritual. But dead. Barely recognizable human corpses, ashes almost.

Almost unrecognizable, and covered again in that sensation of Devotion. As though they'd been lashed out at, blasted with the pure Essence of it. Catherine had stood her ground.

[Ashley McGowen] It's clean inside. Pure. Safe.

Her wards are shattered, and they managed to invade the inside: she's able to see this, sense it, without needing to look. But Catherine herself stood her ground inside, and the interior, the stone well, remains sanctified. It fills her with that sense of devotion she extended toward it months ago, suspended in the water, hearing music for the first time in ten years. With something akin to what she'd wanted to extend to the woman lying in a pool of her own blood outside.

There's nothing more holy than sacrifice. This is something her Avatar knows, and it's something Ashley has been forced to learn. It doesn't make for an easy life, or an easy Enlightenment.

Ashley takes stock of the interior, of the basement. And then she finally just can't stand up anymore, and she kneels inside at the base of the well, presses her forehead against the stone.

That's when the tears come.

[Emily Littleton] There are things to be done. Emily knows this. She knows this, as she stands on the front lawn of the Chantry house, holding a borrowed firearm in broad daylight, staring down at the broken body of another Traditionalist. It takes minutes after Ashley and Alex enter the house for her to start moving again. To reach up and scrub one hand over her features, glance this way and that way down the street, and numbly pull her phone out of her pocket.

The first call goes to Kage.

The phone rings, but Emily doesn't pay enough attention to it to keep track of how many times, or for how long. When Kage picks up, assuming Kage picks up, the Apprentice's voice is rough and barely accented at all. It's all pulled back, worn and unsteady.

"I need help at the house, Kage. It happened again, and Daiyu died. Ashley's here, and Alex, but it's just the three of us."

[Alexander Turnquist] He follows into the chantry after Ashley, his gun held ready in both hands. He scans each corner, clearing each room before moving on. It's not until he gets to the basement that he pauses. He doesn't have access to the chantry, not like other members. But there is nothing stopping him, he knows this. Its all been torn down, still he hesitates. But the crying reaches his ears and he pushes himself forward.

When he comes across Ashley and the charred nephandi, he holsters his weapon and moves across the room towards her. This place.. This place is strange.. he has not been somewhere like this before. He coughs once, its incredibly awkward. To see the dean crying like this.

"Dea-- Ashley.." And he lowers himself to place a hand against her shoulder. "Ashley, the men outside.. some are still alive." He lets that sink in for a moment before he adds more suggestively. "Answers Ashley. Answers that will let us keep the balance." -- a nice way of saying get revenge. A euthie way.

[Emily Littleton] Kage asks very good questions, and they help ground the young apprentice back to the reality around her. (What about the neighbors?)

"Ah, right. They're going to be a bit of a problem, probably," she says, scanning the cadre of dead or otherwise incapacitated forms on the front lawn. Noting the CPD badges. Checking that van for anything resembling SWAT markings just now. All the little details that had gone unnoticed in the melee.

"There's... um... people?" Yes, they're still people. "On the lawn." Dead people. "It's... Kage, it's not good. I can't move them on my own. It's not like last time. There's not a lot of people here. Ashley and Alex went in, and they didn't come back out, but there've been no more gun shots or anything. I think it's ... quieting."

Very helpful. Emily chewed on her lower lip and forcibly pushed down the panic of not knowing what to do, and not having anyone like Ashton here just now to cleave to.

"What can I do while I wait? Who should I call?"

In the meantime she moves between bodies, trying to take away whatever police markings or badges might draw even more undue attention from neighbors or passers by. Not that it would matter, with six bodies on the lawn -- that's a spectacle in and of itself.

[Ashley McGowen] Alex finds his way down the stairs. Ashley doesn't notice him. He isn't supposed to be here in front of the node. Ashley doesn't notice that either.

He touches her shoulder, and he speaks, and the Hermetic's breath catches. Clogs, and she lifts her shoulder to wipe her face, trying to even out those intakes of air, to stop gasping like some beached leviathan, turning to a raisin in the sun. Her chest aches.

Alex extends revenge the Euthanatos way, but Ashley isn't done. Her jaw clenches, and she presses her head against the stone. "Fuck them," she says. Her jaw tightens further, if it were possible, molars grinding, and one small fist balls up and flies into the edge of the well. Once, and then again.

"FUCK YOU!" It's hard to know who that roar is directed at, at first. "So much for this...this fucking city. FUCK YOU." Each word is punctuated by another strike against the well. A flurry, until she's exhausted, until she's emptied, until her knuckles are shredded and bloody.

It takes a while.

And then she's exhausted, and still gasping, and her hand hurts, and she's conscious of that bullet that found its way through her shield, the one that's still buried in the flesh of her side.

She thrusts a hand up toward Alex. "Help me up."

[Alexander Turnquist] He doesn't stop her beating herself up, its not his place. He just watches helplessly as she smashes her hands to bloody pulps against stone. She screams out and at first he thinks she is saying it to him. Telling him to get lost, to fuck off. But its not him she speaks to, he's not entirely sure what she yells at but its not him.

When she asks for help, its offered without hesitation. His hand reaching down and gripping tightly on hers, he pulls her to her feet easily.

"How bad is it?" He asks, eyes looking towards the bloody wound at her side. He doesn't ask if it hurts or if she feels ok. Just will it hinder her from doing what she has to do.

[Ashley McGowen] Alex doesn't know the node is conscious. Not yet. Perhaps one day, after he's found his way into the cabal, he'll learn. He might even be able to speak to it himself.

He tugs Ashley to her feet and she can't help the gasp of pain that accompanies. She's a stoic woman, but that's generally when it comes to emotional hardship, not physical injuries. Right now, she's small and bloody and her body is a mess, throbbing, asking for sleep.

"Not that bad," she says to Alex. Then she walks up the stairs and back outside.

The bright afternoon is a shock to her eyes, swollen as they already are and used to the darkness inside the basement. She ducks her head away from it, at first. And then she sees Daiyu, still lying there on the lawn, and tears flood her eyes again. She wipes them away.

A glance tells her Emily is making calls. Emily's capable. Emily's Emily, and she's never been more grateful for the apprentice than she is at this moment. She walks as quickly as she can past the body of the Akashic so that she can Work on the policemen, dig through their minds and see whether she can repair them, whether they've been so thoroughly soaked in taint that there's nothing that can be done. And in the end, she finds that there isn't. So she looks up at Alex. "There's nothing of them left," she tells him.

The Nephandi, well. They're going to stay good and unconscious, until she has herself together enough to interrogate them. She will be interrogating them.

Once it's taken care of, Ashley sinks to the ground on the grass next to Daiyu and covers her face with a hand. Hopefully Emily's called some help.

[Emily Littleton] While Kage drives, drives like the wind, drives like madness, driven mad -- Haste, she makes it -- Emily works her way down the very short list of people who she should call. There's a Singer, who thinks he might want to Mentor her. She thumbs a few buttons on her phone, sends him a note. Blessedly there's no need to call him, to let that shaken and worried voice escape her lungs once more. The phone is talented. It can do this while she listens to Kage. Message, connect -- the phone is more talented than Emily.

It's just a message, and then she's stepping inside the house to dump the badges on the floor beside the door. To find a linen closet where she might find a sheet, or blanket, or bath-towel to lay over Daiyu. The rest can hang; sod them.

Later, though, she'll remember that they were people, too. And extend some respect. Not just now.

Now she is what Kage told her to be. Martha Fucking Stewart. And nothing is wrong.

[Subterfuge: I am Martha Fucking Stewart and Nothing Is Amiss here, +1 for dead bodies on the lawn and it not yet being halloween]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Ashley McGowen] [Oh, yeah. I should probably Mind people away. Mind 2, -1 for focus, -1 for practiced rote, +1 for, uh, really bad shit just happened.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4) [WP]

[Kage Jakes] Kage wasn't joking.

It takes her less than five minutes. And when she drives around the corner, in her monstrous, larger-than-thou black pick-up, the rubber doesn't burn (burning, burning [Paris is burning, and so is Troy]), and the brakes do not squeal. This is because she's tapped into the road, the ebb and flow of its fortune -- because she is, howsoever briefly, pretty much a god of her machine. The truck stops short, but: doesn't make a single sound in protest. Well, hardly.

If there's a car, any car, any strange car Kage doesn't know, near the House -- well, she parks just behind that. And then the 5"3 Disciple is opening the driver's door, and jumping out onto the sidewalk. Her knees absorb the force. She looks as if she's just come from a very, very casual lunch out. She's wearing a blouse, scoop-necked, and jeans.

"Hey," she calls, and then says: "I've got some equipment in the back." First: Kage takes stock. Of where everybody is. Where everybody is lying. Who everybody is. Then -- well: we'll see, what then.

[Alexander Turnquist] Alex follows Ashley back outside, wordlessly. He doesn't even speak when she tells him there's nothing left of the cops. He knows what she asks, he nods his head and pulls out his gun. It's a bit large for this, some of them still squirm on the ground and its not exactly something he enjoys doing. But their minds are gone, they are just husks, they have long since died. It's like killing a zombie.

He cocks back the magnum, shoots once, twice, three times. It makes an awful mess, but you have to be sure. What's left of their heads leaks goo and brain matter onto the grass.

He holsters the gun and looks up just in time to see Kage saying Hello.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley isn't really conscious of the passage of time. She hears the gunshots as Alex finishes the shells off. Even now there's some part of her, deep inside, that clenches in revulsion. She doesn't want to bring death to anything.

Yet this entire lawn is steeped in it. She was able to focus long enough, just a little longer, to mask the place in time for help.

After that, there's just nothing. She curls and buries her head in her arms and tries not to imagine what's beneath the sheet. Kage's appearance barely even registers, let alone gets a hello.

[James Blake] He'd been planning on walking from his place to the Chantry. It's close enough. But then a red haired woman in a pickup truck found him. So he hitches a ride. It's rather convenient. They don't talk on the way. Kage drives like a maniac and James checks his gun. When they get there death is on the lawn. The Chorister sees Alex after he sees the bodies. He pauses at the edge of the property...then starts across the lawn. His eyes are drawn to the one body with a sheet over it. He recognises the body underneath...but he doesn't linger on it. This isn't the time to let himself feel anything.

The deaf man puts his hand on the Euthanatos' shoulder to get his attention. "You hur'? Wha' the fu' happen'?"

[Emily Littleton] Kage arrives in her beast of a truck, steps out with her rowan hair and this is not how they are meant to meet. Not here, steeped in blood-death, in mind-death, in malady. There is no path through the thorns here that kisses another, and no gently blown leaf litter (just life litter) to obscure the well worn paths. It is chaos, and terrible at that. There are places in the lawn where the ground has soaked up the blood, swallowed it up, pulled it down -- like the grounds are just as Hungry as the Hermetic (a terrifying thought, at best)

Ashley sits with Daiyu; Alex wraps up loose ends of the tapestry and Emily still clutches her phone in one hand like a talisman. As if to say see here, I called them, I called them and it is enough, I called them and they came so, so it will all be better now. But there is no better, and there is no smile. She watches Kage take stock of the situation, watches James approach Alex. Then Emily exhales, and heads for the other Orphan.

"Hey."

And then moves on to help with the the equipment in the truck, shoving her phone in her pocket as she goes.

[Kage Jakes] Kage and Alex haven't yet had the pleasure. They haven't even been at the same Meeting, and so from there to have a common jumping-off point: you. You're the one who says this. You. You're the one who watches, just so. The red-haired woman has to take a brief, steadying breath when Alexander Turnquist, Euthanatos, puts a bullet in a head (onetwothree[fourfive pigeons] justlikethat). And then another.

And then another. James walks across the grass. Kage doesn't, quite yet. Doesn't walk over to Ashley and give her a hug, or make any friendly gesture like that. "Are the other two dead?" She is asking Emily, and she is asking Alex. The equipment she was talking about: well, it's a pick-up truck. She has a lot of shopping bags. A lot, a lot, a lot of shopping bags (she was shopping, just before she got the call). And she has a camera, and she has a tarp. The tarp she uses to cover the bed of the pick-up when it rains.

Kage pulls out that tarp, billows of it, and says: "All right. Put this down on the living room floor. That's where we'll drag 'em. Ask James, and - Alex, was it?" This is for Emily, because she's not lifting her voice so that it carries. Kage, she goes off to investigate the van, and barring an act of Doom, she disappears inside.

[Kage Jakes] [And, uh. Just to cover all bases. Bad guy car. I am an investigate-y master, right? So if there's annnnnything to find, I'm totally gonna find it, right? Intel + Invest. +WP. Because, uhm. Dead bodies. And investigate-y masters don't leave behind signs of their presence!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
to†Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] [I have witnessed the badassery of your investigation skills, oh masterful one. Alas, I know nothing of the bad guy car of doom. Ask your friendly, medicated ST.]
to†Kage Jakes

[Alexander Turnquist] Alex holsters the weapon and turns to meet James before his hand touches against his shoulder. He smiles. It's good to see the Chorister, though what he's doing here is any ones guess.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." He waves a hand at the concern, casting it aside. "Fallen attacked the Chantry, we sorted them though. We lost one in the fight however.. Daiyu.. Did you know her?" His eyes narrow with his own concern now as he watches the Singers face. He hates being the bearer of bad news.

When Kage wanders up and he gives her a nod, he's never seen her before. His eyes rake her body, not in a sexual way, just getting a good picture of her to store in his memory.

"Hey, I'm Alex. The other two.. they're the Fallen. They've hopefully got a few things still rattling around in their heads so Ashley will want to get in there I'm sure. The others... well... just empty shells."

He pauses and he adds. "Theres three more in the basement, burnt totally fried. Not sure by what, ask Ashley."

But the woman is all action, bustling about with tarpaulins and god knows what else. She's like a character straight out of...-- "Yo Bones." He calls out to her and gives his shoulders a little shrug. "Whats all this for?"

[Emily Littleton] This is a perfunctory thing. A working thing. No time for how do you do and why it's nice to see you, no, Kage has a tarp and she's telling Emily it goes in the living room. Are the other two dead?

"No. I don't think so." A wary glance cast that way. They aren't dead, but they also aren't moving. Emily takes the tarp and follows Kage with her eyes only when the Disciple goes to investigate the van. Then she makes her way over to James and Alex, positions herself so they both can see her, holds up the tarp. Looks to the bodies.

Then heads inside the Chantry.

If they don't follow her, then the Apprentice will start shoving furniture out of the way on her own to make room for the tarp. For the bodies. God above how she hated this house and all of its dead bodies. She can't look at Ashley, just now, on her way to the porch. Or Daiyu. Emily keeps her focus whittled down so tightly that she doesn't notice if either man follows her in until their footsteps fall on the hardwood floors.

[James Blake] He doesn't bother trying to act like this doesn't bother him. Alex says they lost Daiyu. James already suspected as much. But that doesn't make it easier to read on his friend's lips. He gives an unhappy smile and drops his eyes for a second. This isn't hitting him nearly as hard as it hit Ashley. Still. He looks back up and says, "Yeah." And then he takes a breath. Stands up straight. If he had a rifle he would shoulder it.

Emily comes out. Holds up the tarp. OK he signs. And then he looks over at Ashley. When he speaks this time his voice cracks. It's only mid afternoon. But he'd spent all morning talking. "I go in in a minu'. Wai' for me...I hel' you."

He and Ashley aren't exactly friends. They've spoken twice...maybe 3 times if you count the first encounter with the Weathermen. But only really spoken twice. Her apprentice is his friend. He asked for her advice on his would-be apprentice. So...they're not close. But he walks up to her anyway. Rests his hand on her shoulder for a few seconds. If she jerks away he takes a hint. But he doesn't speak either way. And after a few seconds he steps back and walks toward the house to help Emily.

[eileen] A few blocks from here there is a huge brick house. Two stories plus a basement and an attic. It was abandoned ages ago. Used to be a funeral home. The sign outside has been peeling. It isn't too far from this house, this white-picket-fenced house. But it has the sort of character one might find inspiring. Stories about it abound. It always seems windy. The backyard garden is overgrown, and its flowers and trees seem to blossom and grow well past when others die come autumn and winter. There's a plum tree in the middle. There's a little playhouse in the back that someone built by hand. Less well-known: an enormous spiral carved into the wood floor of the attic.

Not that Eileen had the guts to go inside. She's no (sub)urban explorer. She did creep through the gate to take photographs of the wild garden, the roses, the white stones nestled into the weeds at the base of the various trees. It isn't that the house is haunted by anything but rumors, but people tend to leave it alone in a way the suburbs don't usually tolerate. Fucking funeral home.

Her camera is in a camera bag over her shoulder. It's warm enough that she's just in knee-length denim shorts that hug her leg, the ends folded up and ironed neatly to lie flat. Low-top camel-colored Cons. A green t-shirt. Her hair is up in a ponytail, hanging thick and chocolate-caramel down her back. Her footsteps fall slap-tidy on the pavement as she walks right past the white picket fence

and the bodies

and the magi

singing to herself, since there's nobody around, and singing rather badly: "-- special boots that beat the path to my house and it's careful, and it's careful when I'm therrre..."

[Ashley McGowen] Things are going on around her, people are walking around with tarps, taking the dead officers, Kage is here, James is here. Things are getting taken care of.

Distantly, Ashley is angry at herself for not being able to help with the cleanup, because it's something she should be able to do right now. It's important. People have doubtlessly heard the gunshots, and while the illusion she put up is going to fool Sleepers, it wouldn't fool Technocrats. It wouldn't fool anyone who investigated too much, poked too far past that barrier.

But she can't. Not in the face of all the other emotions that are swirling in her stomach and the thoughts that keep going through her mind. She isn't empty, yet, shock hasn't settled in. Maybe it won't. Maybe she won't go blissfully numb.

She'd like to say her goodbyes to the body, but this place is too public, and she isn't quite uninhibited enough. It will have to wait until Daiyu's taken elsewhere: she will be, for the last rites.

Eileen wanders by. Ashley doesn't see it. James rests his hand on her shoulder and she doesn't jerk away. She doesn't really respond, either.

[Emily Littleton] James will find her inside the house. Where their footprints from coming and going are now brown-red traces on the wood floors. Emily remembers when these floors were carpeted. She remembers when that carpeting was drenched and painted with gore. Standing just here, in the dead of winter, with the smell of death surrounding her.

That's probably why her hands shake, somewhat as she pushes the coffee table to one side. Moves everything up against the wall with focus and direction. There's a cluttered pile of police badges and IDs beside the doorway. She'd taken them off the fallen men sometime between calling Kage and the big black truck's arrival. Alex's other gun is there, too. Emily had not continued carrying it around, for better or worse.

Her hands are already stained, smeared in places and clean in others. Her hair is trapped in a spiral at the nape of her neck that threatens to yield, to unwind itself. Her resonance is up, and though the Correspondence rote has faded, he can still taste the Unrelenting Reverence around her. It's a lower note, there, under the cupperic tinge of all this blood.

James walks in, and she looks up. Pauses in whatever she's doing. There's the tarp, folded and violently blue in the middle of the entryway. Her eyes find his, for a moment. They're empty. She's alert, and she's looking over at him, but there's no push, no challenge, no mirth or lightness. There's a numbness (I've done this before) and a worry (It will never get easy), and then the Apprentice goes back to work.

Wordlessly.

[Kage Jakes] Kage isn't so caught up in what she's doing that she doesn't reply to Alexander when he replies to her. This is an organic process, the 'clean-up'; this is an organic process, what occurs to one to do when one is Kage Jakes and one is called into the wake left behind by bloody deeds at the White Fence House. There's room for conversation -- or, at least, room for information. Yo, Bones, he says, and Kage, who is rather solemn-eyed just now, grim-gazed, crooks her mouth. The ghost've a smile. "Alex," she says, accepting the nickname, and not choosing to replace it with her actual name yet (maybe she is a little distracted [she hates blood and murder]). "If you could start getting 'em inside, that would be useful." And he wants to know what it's all for: "Don't want to get blood on the carpet. When we bring her in, we won't be putting them in the same room." She raises her eyebrows, to see if he has any questions.

And then Eileen, she's singing badly as she wanders by. Kage winces. Not because of the tune, no. But because there's anybody out at all. And if Alex doesn't have any questions, she's inside the van, all vanished. Probably. Checking things out -- it takes time.

[ =) Percept + Awareness. You aren't a scary Nephandi, are you, hipster-girl?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kage Jakes] ooc: the 'bring her in' - meh, there should be emphasis, to make it clear she means Daiyu. (grin) I'm tired, yo.
to†Alexander Turnquist

[eileen] If Eileen were using magic at the moment it would slam in Kage's senses like a load of metaphors. She's not. Kage lucks out, as a few others here today have not in the past. But there's something about her, and it isn't inside-out, corrupt, dark, goo where there should be no goo. It's noisy and bright and chaotic, like getting dropped headfirst into an upside-down Wonderland-themed nightclub or something.

Her soul is right-side out. That much Kage can tell easily enough. Her soul is brighter than your average bear's. That, Kage can tell, too.
to†Kage Jakes

[Alexander Turnquist] "Getting em inside right.. right.. Different rooms.." He frowns, thinks on it a moment and then realisation dawns. "Oooh. I get you. Right, as you say Bones." And he turns on his heel, but that's when he notices. Short, curly brown hair. Quirky little grin. Oh how strange it is to see that in the midst of all this hell. She's singing even, its bizarre. He stops and looks around him, as if checking to see if anyone else has noticed this. Then he calls out.

"Eileen." a pause. "Eileen, what are you doing?" And he actually steps towards the girl in case she doesn't stop on her current trajectory.

"It's dangerous out, you can't be walking around like this around here. You better stay with me. James and Emily are inside, do you know Emily?" He's talking rather fast and there's a bit of blood spattered onto his cheek and chin that he is thankfully unaware of.

[eileen] [*waves wand, makes that 'miss cotton, miss cotton, what are you doing'*]

[eileen] [*also helps nomey look at the DP/gallery at eileen's 'short' hair*]

[Alexander Turnquist] [*flaps hands at kai and waves some scissors* ILL MAKE IT HAPPEN]

[eileen] One minute she's walking along, minding her own business, and the next thing she knows someone is calling her name. Someone with blood on his face. Eileen doesn't stop walking right away. First her head turns and her singing trails off as she looks over to see who is calling out her last name, since he just doesn't have anything else to call her by.

Her eyes widen at the sight of his face. She doesn't look anywhere but at Alex just yet. "I'm... walking to the bus stop," she says. There's a pause. "You have, um... cranberry sauce. On your cheek."

She brushes her hand at her own face, mirroring where it is on his.

[Alexander Turnquist] His eyes narrow, she's talking nonsense. Cranberry sauce? What is she on about-- His eyes go wide and his face goes pale. He has blood on his face doesn't he. Probably brain juice or something equally horrible. His hand scratches at the spot indicated by miss cotton, his fingernails come away dark red from the dried substance. He sighs.

"Yeah you don't want to do that... do you even know what's been going on here?" He turns and looks at the bodies all laying in the grass outside the chantry. He needs to tend to those.

"Look, have you ever seen a dead person before Cotton?"

[Emily Littleton] When James doesn't answer, when he isn't looking her way or lingering long enough to notice the apprentice, and no one seems ready to start the lumbering work of moving bodies into the house, Emily finds her way to the kitchen. She drags the footprint-steps further in. Makes more of a mess to clean later. She washes her hands and put the kettle on.

It takes time. Time while Alex is talking to Eileen, and James is doing whatever it is that he does, and Kage is investigating the hell out of the Nephandi Van. Emily waits there, in the kitchen, like this was a normal afternoon Chantry visit. She's making tea. Not because any one will drink it, and not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's something small.

Something human.

When she comes out of the Chantry again, and she is still vaguely channeling that Nothing's Amiss Here vibe, she heads not towards the bodies littering the yard but toward the one (only) draped and hidden from view. Toward the Dean, who is also the Hermetic, who is also a friend.

Emily pulls up a patch of grass beside Ashley. She hands the tea to the other woman, without putting words into the mess. If nothing else, the faint scent of jasmine will help cover the stomach-turning scents. It will give her something to hold. Or to throw. Or to even drink.

If Ashley doesn't take it, Emily sets the mug on the ground between them. And she waits on James or Alex to help her move people. She can't move them alone.

[eileen] It will be awhile before she decides she wants to look somewhere other than a face she's met. Once. A face she knows hides an Awakened brain-soul-construct-person-self. A face she guessed right about, because someone was helpful enough to confirm that he is, in fact, a wheel turner. She is determined that it's cranberry sauce. She will stay determined that it's cranberry sauce until the last possible second.

"I don't want to catch my bus?" she says, a little confused. "But I do, it's --"

have you ever

never have i ever not seen a dead body

She stops, and her eyebrows tug together. "Yes," she says, and leaves it there. She doesn't ask why.

[Ashley McGowen] Emily sits down in the grass next to her, and there is no response from the Hermetic. Ashley isn't even crying anymore: just verging on catatonic. The others are moving the body inside, and Daiyu is going to be moved into a separate room.

It's likely that she'll spend the night here. It's likely that she'll spend it next to the body. Morbid, perhaps, but people have their own ways of grieving, and Ashley isn't particularly interested in what other people would think of it. Or what other people would think of her relationship with Daiyu, or what they think of her sitting here while there is work to be done. She just doesn't care.

Emily, though, isn't here to do more than simply offer her a cup of tea. Something to hold and something to warm her hands and give her some small bit of comfort. Just that: the gesture a friend does for another friend.

Except, unfortunately, of all the teas Emily could have chosen she chose jasmine tea.

Ashley takes the cup and the moment the scent hits her, her hand trembles, and most of the hot liquid spills over her lap. She doesn't yell at the apprentice: she can't have known. But the cup is hastily dumped out and set aside and Ashley covers her hands with her eyes again and goes silent.

[Ashley McGowen] [...er. She covers her eyes with her hand.]

[Alexander Turnquist] He ignores the statement about her bus, cotton ramblings. Though the clever confusion of it isn't lost on the Euthanatos. She answers the important question and she doesn't wander off into potential danger. That's the main thing, mission accomplished Alex.

"James is inside, he'd want to see you. You should head on in."

And then he turns on his heel and steps towards the bodies. He takes off his leather jacket, his holster with his huge magnum in it seems suddenly all the more real once it is revealed. One holster at his chest still remains empty, he'll need to get that weapon back of Emily. The straps are undone and the weapon comes down to be piled with the leather jacket followed by his t-shirt. This is going to be messy.

He picks up his bundle of belongings and places them closer to the chantry entrance before heading back and rather unceremoniously hoisting one of the dead cops up onto his shoulder. He carries the corpse like a sack of potatoes inside, blood oozing from the wounds of the man. Alex grimaces but says nothing and deposits the dead body on the tarpaulin before heading back for another.

[Emily Littleton] This... this is not good. Ashley dumps the tea all over her lap. Then she dumps the remaining tea on the ground. Emily can't quite fathom why, isn't going to ask, probably doesn't want to know, but now there's another puddle on the lawn. And an upturned mug. And an Adept, with her head in her hands. The Singer to be wilts a little more, rounds her shoulders and purses her lips. She picks up the mug.

Emily wraps her fingers around the still warm stoneware. She smooths her thumbs over the curl of the handle. She exhales, quietly and with a bone-deep weariness, as she pushes herself back up to standing.

It would have been better if Ashley had yelled. It is eerie to see the Tytalan beyond fighting, mournful and weathered. In the middle of a broad-daylight afternoon. In the middle of such a mess. It bothers her, enough to set her moving again.

Back into the house, back into the kitchen, the cup goes back into the sink. She washes her hands again. It doesn't matter, they won't stay clean. Not today. Not until all of this is done. And then Emily will head back out, and hopefully she will not have to tell the menfolk, in actual words what she needs them to help with.

Doing? That's one thing. It's managable. Naming what it is they have to do? Completely another. Utterly beyond her.

[Kage Jakes] [All right. Just ... a btw, WP! You can do it! -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
to†Ashley McGowen, Emily Littleton

[Kage Jakes] When the red-haired Disparate (shard [Awake]) is done with (in)the van, she leaves it. There is Ashley, in the same place, her hands over her eyes, a cup -- overturned, bright -- in the grass. There are the two unconscious fallen-down Fallen Down in the grass, and the two -- three? -- policemen whose minds were gone long before Alex executed 'em. And there's a girl who doesn't feel tainted, gooey, full of gross (but they're good at Masking [that's what the Cultist said, just half an hour ago: maybe a little more]), but instead feels like a character from a Francesca Lia Block novel.

And Alex is talking to her about dead bodies, has she ever seen them, and then Alex is hauling one of the cops -- just in time to escape a disbelieving look, throwing him over his shoulder, and walking into the house. There's gunk. From a head-wound. Especially one so fresh. And that's horrifying, really. Horror, as per usual. Kage actually hates the White Fence House sometimes. If by sometimes, we mean a lot of the times. Whatever's inside, Catherine, devotion, shining well-deep of star-spangled Beauty, well -- fine. Whatever. Worth it?

Emily comes out again, and Kage says, "Help me with this one." It's not that she's ignoring Eileen; she isn't. Miss Cotton. She certainly isn't. She's just not inviting her in, and she isn't telling her to run, either -- undecided, or perhaps just overloaded. Then she takes a deep, deep breath, and [closes her eyes, tightly] crouches down to hook one of the dead cops's under the armpits and haul up with all her strength. Hopefully, Emily will get the legs, and they'll carry him inside, and Kage will not throw-up, and she will not think very much about what it feels like, the body in her arms, the man who was empty before he died, what he might've done, what he did.

[Alexander Turnquist] He spots Emily on her way back outside and he's about to say something when Kage spots her first, they offer to bring in one of the bodies. They don't look very happy about it, at least kage doesn't.

"Why don't you two collect the shells, we need to get them. 3 from Emily's .45, 9 from my 44, 2 from a shotgun and 3 from another .45." He pauses, the information stored in his brain during combat is something he hasn't really thought about before, its deeply engraved within his subconscious. It's a reflex, he just does it.

Without another word he picks up the cop that Kage is attempting to haul and again slings him over his shoulder. How disgusting. Brains fall out all over the grass as he walks away with it.

[Ashley McGowen] People are carrying bodies in, and after a while, it occurs to Ashley that other things have all been done, she should help at least with Daiyu, and it will let her get off the lawn that much faster.

It will let her get inside where it's quiet and it's dark and where nobody is going to bother her, where she won't smell the lingering traces of jasmine. Where she can say her goodbyes privately.

So, after a moment, she pushes herself to her feet. Her breath hitches again as she's suddenly reminded that there's a bullet still lodged in her side, and she probably needs to see a doctor. She isn't going to see a doctor. She's going to throw down painkillers and hope it dulls it a little. She may call Ashton. But she isn't going to the doctor.

She makes sure the sheet is secure, and then she hooks her arms underneath the dead Akashic's and begins to pull her into the house. She can't lift her, but Daiyu isn't heavy, and Ashley is certainly able to drag her in without stopping, even wounded as she is.

[eileen] "Insi--"

It's the beginning of a question that doesn't ever gain full voice. Alex is turning on his heel and walking away, which takes away that nice point of cranberry-sauce-flecked focus. There he is, letting the whole world see his gun because the whole world is currently oblivious to his gun. And there's dead bodies, in various states of yecch. Alex is dragging and carrying them to a tarp.

Emily is over by Ashley and Ashley's...

The pain from her is almost palpable. It's in the air as much as her resonance. Eileen is still on the sane side of the fence, looking into the lawn. Her lips are parted and her eyes aren't blinking and Emily's inside the house and there's a redhead and Emily's outside the house and Eileen's staring at what she didn't see before.

She swallows, closing her mouth, puts her hand on the gate, and walks in. Her camera stays in its bag and her bag stays over her shoulder. Her eyes are on Ashley for a little longer, though Ashley doesn't know it, and rather than going to the woman she promised not to touch anymore, she starts to edge away. But not to the house. And not towards the bodies. Not... well. She sort of sways, not sure which direction to go until Alex speaks up.

"I can do that," she says, perhaps not loud enough. Then again, louder: "I can do that."

Ashley gets up to carry the only body with a covering. Eileen turns her eyes away from the sight of it, from the taste and aura of Ashley's sorrow. She starts searching for shells in the grass.

[James Blake] It's hard to work and converse at the same time. Not for hearing people. But when your voice is in your hands and your ears are in your eyes...it does make things hard. James isn't one to dwell on it. It's not like he knows what it's like to hear and then suddenly not. This is just how it is. And sometimes things don't go as smoothly as they would if he were hearing. But it's okay. He manages.

Emily slips out of the house while he's arranging furniture...putting down tarps so that when they drag the bodies in there won't be as large a mess. When he finishes he goes into the kitchen to wash his hands. And then he realises he doesn't know where his would-be apprentice went. "Emily?" he calls. Only it doesn't quite sound like that. And no one hears him. He wipes his hands off on his jeans - no time to look for a hand towel - and goes back out onto the porch. In time to see Ashley drop a cup of tea on her lap. He stands there for a few seconds. And then he notices Miss Cotton.

The Chorister jumps off the porch instead of taking the steps. Walks across the lawn to where Alex and Eileen are. He gives Eileen a smile. But it's just a stand-in for a wave. This isn't a social function. Alex picks up a dead cop without any need for assistance. James isn't quite so strong. He's tall but he's built for moving fast...not for lifting heavy things. Or dead bodies. Ashley starts to drag Daiyu's body inside. The Chorister winces. Hurries over to her. "Le' me hel'," he says, and picks up the tiny Vajrapani's legs.

[Emily Littleton] Emily was about to take up the feet of the cop, to ferry him haltingly with Kage toward the blue tarp where he might await his final resting place, when Alex interceded. It was better, this way. The last time there had bits of bodies, lax and slippery, foul smelling and crimson. Those bits went into Ashton's jeep. There'd been more of them then, more to bear the burden, more to share in the slave-trade that was ferrying the dead across the frozen yard.

Emily had kicked the snow over bloody places. It had been colder then.

It's easy to get the two times mixed up in her brain. Alex takes the body off of Kage's hands, gives them a task, and Eileen steps in to fill it. She isn't sure what to do, so Emily, too, stoops to wrap her slick hands under the arms of another fallen body. She tugs as she stands up.

It doesn't move.

She tugs again.

Something blurbles unappealingly, and something oozes. The apprentice lets go, turns a pale shade of green, and takes a step backwards.

[Kage Jakes] [All right. We're doing a pre-emptive strength roll, to see how horrid this is going to be.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 4 (Failure at target 6) [WP]

[Kage Jakes] [Nope, again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7) [WP]

[Ashley McGowen] Let me help, says James, and then he picks up Daiyu's legs.

Ashley looks up at him, and the blue of her eyes is stark right now because they're so glossy, because the whites have reddened. They're utterly vibrant, in their grief.

She adjusts her arms beneath Daiyu's, firms her grasp a bit so that she can be more easily lifted and carried inside rather than dragged. It doesn't need to be said that she appreciates it, that she feels this is more respectful.

"Thank you," she says quietly. And with James, she moves backwards up the stairs and carries the body inside so that it can be set in one of the bedrooms. She can't think of where else to put it: the chantry is not a funeral home, though it might as well be by now. She sets Daiyu down on the bed, still with the sheet.

And just looks down at the shape beneath the shroud for a few seconds before asking, "Can you leave me alone for a while?"

[Kage Jakes] Kage is glad to let Alex take the dead cop. Kage is also glad to move on to one of the Nephandi that Daiyu'd been beside. And Ashley. They're going up, and into the house now -- they've disappeared. Eileen, wide-eyed, is combing through the grass; Emily looks as if she's going to be sick. "Leave off, Em," Kage says, gentle - "Help, uhm. Miss Cotton, huh?"

And she utterly fails, at first, to move the dead weight of the fallen man; almost strains something, almost pulls something out of something it shouldn't be pulled out've -- but she tries again, and hauls nephandi one into the house. Hauls him further, not into the room with the tarp. Into another room, a room that can be warded [by Ashley, or herself; she'll do it if she has to], so that if he comes back to wakefulness, he won't be getting out.

They're all on it now: the Mages. Soon enough, the bodies are all inside. There's still remnants of gore in the grass. Gore makes the grass grow green and bright at the White Fence House, so that's good.

[James Blake] He takes Ashley's lead when they carry Daiyu inside. This is better than dragging her. It's just a shell...but it's a shell that belonged to someone they both respected. Someone who deserves better than to be hauled around like nothing. So they carry her. And James doesn't try to put her on a tarp or on the floor. They go all the way to the bedroom. He takes a few steps back. Watching Ashley the entire time. He can't see if she speaks. Her grief is like thunder. He can't hear it or see it. But he can feel it. He doesn't touch her again.

"Ta' your ti'," he says. As quiet as he can since he can't hear himself. "We han'le everythi'." And then he steps out of the room...and shuts the door behind him.

[Ashley McGowen] James tells her to take her time, reassures her that they can handle everything, and the Initiate doesn't know just how much that lifts off her shoulders. Or maybe he does, and maybe that's precisely why he said it. And then he closes the door, and the room is dark except for white light filters through the curtain.

Ashley stands for a few seconds in that beam of light, glances toward the window. She doesn't open it.

All she does is walk over to the bed and drop, adjusts so that she isn't lying on the wound. It's still bleeding, beginning to throb now that the adrenaline has fully died away. She removes the sheet and curls up against the body, which will be cleaned later. But not right now.

And she's going to remain there for a long time.

[Emily Littleton] Emily doesn't know Miss Cotton, but she does know Eileen. Eileen has impressive bottle-cap skills. Eileen knows Colin (who is also Henry), and she knows James. This is good, because Emily is not in the right mindset to look after someone new to the cursed and often bloody ways of the White Picket Fence House. Surely, as an Emissary, she should be worrying about things like whether Eileen has clearance.

When the Dean is mourning a cabalmate (friend), in an upstairs room, fresh after a Nephandic attack, points of order seem... inconsequential. So she offers Eileen a small, thin-lipped smile. It isn't warm, because warm was incongruous with where they were and what they were doing. She joins the young woman in combing through the grass for casings, like they were on on some macabre Easter Egg hunt (though Emily very much doubted anyone would rise from the dead in three days).

It was not Good Friday.

When their paths crossed, she offered a quiet "Thanks for your help." It's the first she's said in awhile. It sounds a little rough, as if her speech were unpracticed just now.

[Alexander Turnquist] After the last cop is thrown inside in the living room, Alex moves to the kitchen and opens the fridge. He procures himself a couple of bottles of beer and heads back outside, sitting down on the porch. He lets out a long sigh. He looks horrific, dead cop blood splattered on his bare torso from the carrying. He cracks open the bottle and downs about half of it in the first swig. Mother of christ and its only the afternoon.

He watches the ladies searching for shells, though he's not really paying much attention. His eyes are glazed over. He's had enough, he just wants to go home have a shower and give Riley a hug.

[eileen] She's hardly the smallest person here, might not even be the youngest, but Eileen makes herself seem quite little indeed as she hunts and gathers shells. She counts them. She was paying enough attention to what Alex said that she knows to count. When she gets so many gathered that she can't carry more, she goes and dumps a double handful on the tarp. Goes back to find more. They're mostly in the same general area.

Her head comes up the one time Kage says her name, the way people look up when they hear their name. She doesn't add in her first name. Not right now. She just does what she can to help, like there's nothing strange at all like finding a bunch of magi with dead people and firearms shells to deal with.

Have you ever seen a dead body before?

She has to ask Alex once how many, which caliber. As if she can tell them apart. Maybe it's just nine of one, four of the other or something. Eventually it's done and her hands smell and they're shaking but she's keeping very quiet, which isn't usual for those who have spent more than a few minutes around her. Or even just a few minutes. She counts the shells once she and Emily are done. Not even a thin smile. Just... maintaining.

Her chest moves under her shirt when she breathes. Emily speaks, and her eyes snap to the other woman's, because that keeps her from looking at anything else. "Oh." Beat. "Yeah. You're welcome. So you're... uh." She lifts a hand, wiggling it in the air. Whatever that means.

[James Blake] There's blood on his hands. He looks at them as he walks down the stairs. It's as Emily noted...there's no way to get them clean and keep them there in this house. He plods downstairs, and stops at the bottom to see where everyone is. How many bodies are inside. He can't hear sirens. Can't hear voices. So he seeks out the others. And he does what he can to get the rest of the bodies inside. Afterward he comes out onto the porch. Pulls out his cigarettes. Sits down next to Alex. He doesn't speak. There's no point. He just offers the Euthanatos a cigarette.

[Alexander Turnquist] Alex looks at the smoke, strangely he takes it. What the fuck, its been a long day. He puts it in his mouth and hands over one of the beers to the Chorister and waits for a light.

[Emily Littleton] It's done. Eileen is looking up at her as if her eyes were the one stable point in all this mess, and Emily is trying, for the other girl's sake, to be stable. To be a thing to hold on to. It's not really in her, just now, but she understands. She remembers what it was like to have someone turn her bodily away from all of this, because she couldn't turn her eyes away on her own.

"Yeah," Emily says. She's {finger waggles}, whatever that means. "I'm going to go wash up," she says. But she doesn't look away from Eileen's eyes just yet. "Coming?"

She'll lead her straight through the house to the kitchen, which is spared (usually) from the chaos of whatever besieges the house. Today it is clean, aside from bloody footsteps, and there's a broad sink to wash their hands in. There's tea on the counter, a little over-steeped but sweet-green smelling. It's a counter point. Someplace a bit safer for the other mage to be. Emily washes up. She dries her hands on a towel. She watches Eileen (if she's come into the house), and waits.

If she's alone, then the Singer-to-be will join James and Alex on the porch. If not, she'll let Eileen lead.

[eileen] Inside the house is where they took the small body covered by the blanket. Inside the house is where Ashley hasn't come out of. Ashley whose mourning is like a migraine, pressing against her skull, or maybe that's the Adept's magic, or maybe it's just a migraine.

She looks at Emily because it means not looking at the brains. It means not looking at the blood and it means not looking at whatever bits of body are left on the lawn. It was the way she looked at Alex earlier, because it was something to focus on. Not quite meditative. Far from panicked. She's unsettled, and she's... most obviously... avoidant.

Which is why she looks at the door into the house, and she shakes her head. "I'm good," she says quietly, and though she walks up to the porch. She sits between James and Alex, whether that means sitting on the ground or cramped onto a bench or in a separate chair, and then she opens her camera bag.

To take out a little plastic film canister.

And to open said film canister, remove some papers and a little baggie of green stuff, and start rolling.