Beyond Star City: IC Thread

[Aussie_Wolf]

Ahh so the ones he didn't recognize where Enochian and Draconic. He had recognized all the Infernal languages of course and could even read most of what was written in them and the Fae runes as well although he only recognized about three of the words written here.

Yeah your right, there are seven different colors and now that I am looking closely and not shitting myself at the size of this thing there is a distinct pattern."

Danny took a closer look and had to stare a little harder as the colors seemed to like to swirl and mix together, but he eventually worked it out and then chuckled.

"It's the old Rainbow trick. You know ROYGBIV. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. That last one is damn tricky to see to, especially in this light but it is there. Oh and your right about the four languages of the infernal. Those I can read. You need a translation I can give you that."

He glanced over at Shrieve to judge her reaction at the news he had just given her.

"So, Just how bad is this thing. With four Infernal languages it can't be good, but Fae is old school as well and can be used for good or bad and I am assuming the other two are similar. This thing sounds like a bloody magic atomic bomb, and that Familiar said he had been all over town. If there are more of these things." Danny blanched and went Pale, a sight to see on a blue body.

"Oh Hell. Please tell me you know how to dismantle this thing or know someone who can."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red Rainbow. (Shrieve)

Blue Devil was losing his blue over how scary this amalgam of magical languages was.

Shrieve, on the other hand, had to resist the urge to facepalm.

"Seriously. A rainbow."

"What's it trying to pull? Is it scared we're gonna make off with its Lucky Charms?"

It wasn't so unusual to her to see Fae paired with demonic languages-- after all, according to some legends, the realm of Faerie only existed because it rented some of Hell's excess territory.

"Disrupting a magical circle is usually pretty easy-- it's why they're so hard to make correctly, one little detail out of place and the whole thing gets rendered useless. A little graffiti here, a break in the line carved here, pffft, finito. That pallid anthropomorphism you caged while trying to guarantee yourself immortality is turning your subconscious inside out."

She squinted behind the moonglasses. "But before we fuck this thing up, we need to figure out what it does. It could be a containment circle, like I said; I'm not unleashing anything onto this plane unless I have the ammo handy that can kill it. The rainbow motif, all leprechaun stereotypes aside, this could be a bad thing."

"Consider that in The Tanakh, oh, sorry, fallen choir-boy," she rolled her eyes a little, made air-quotes, "'The Old Testament,' the rainbow was a sign that The Deluge was over, a major turning point between antediluvian and post-diluvian-- could be something heralding a new age, or what-have-you, like this supposed new Thirteenth Age of Magic the scholastic types have all been bitching about. That sort of transition is usually pretty major, ask The Mayans."

"And then there's Bifrost, The Rainbow Bridge, this thing could represent a gap between realms or planets or even dimensions?"

"I can read the Infernal stuff well enough to get by, but it's-- it's like context-sensitive controls in video games. They can each mean their own thing separately... but what do they mean together?"

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Danny had been looking at the languages he could read. He wasn't all that fluent in Fae but he knew enough to get by Fairly well. It sounded like he knew as much in it as Shrieve did in Infernal languages. Of course he was very fluent in all of the Pit's languages. He had to be now. He had taken crash courses in them with his lawyer as they wrangled his legal documents and the exact wording of his contract.

Shrieve was right of course. When a word from one language was paired with another from another language it could change the meaning of both words or blend them into a whole new word. He likened it to Japanese Kanji writing. His own contract had looked like it stated one thing but in reality it had actually said another because of this very fact and it was only written in two languages blended together. There was no telling what this circle was actually for with seven languages in it, but he may be able to get a feeling for it by working out the four he did know and associating it with the Fae.

Looking long and hard at the shifting runes he began to puzzle out the tangle of words and what he was translating was not filling him with confidence. Not only was he getting a feeling of dread but he was starting to feel a little bit of respect for whoever had actually drawn this circle. It was a masterpiece and even though it was downright evil he was impressed.

"I have some bad news and some even worse news Shrieve,"he began.The bad news is that this circle will not be easy to disrupt. The usual methods of tampering with it are out. Trying to rub any of it out or adding to it will just set off some nasty booby traps and protection spells you don't want to be on the end of. Well that's what's in the four Infernal parts and from what I can make out in the Fae as well. You can check the other two but I would bet my life they are there as well."

He looked over at her and grimaced. "The really bad news is that this thing is a recharging station. From what I can gather it has been set up by the four princes of hell and someone real big in the Fae world for the sole purpose of gathering soul energy to recharge power." He looked her in the eye to make sure she understood the importance of his statement. "You understand what I am saying to you right? The four princes Azazel, Belial, Beelzebub and Lacy Blaze who are normally at each others throats, have come together to construct this. That is how powerful and how important this thing is."

Danny took a step back and looked at the circle with respect and a healthy dose of fear. Just who or what was supposed to get recharged here and when would the feasting begin? At the moment the circle hardly looked powered up but he knew it would not be long before it got what it needed. After all people died every day here in New York so Souls were plentiful.

Then a word caught his eye and he traced a small passage. 'Young souls given freely shall I take'. So was someone out there making deals or what?Well it was the only clue they had. "Got a clue here Shrieve. They are taking young souls and supposedly they are being given away willingly. Ring any bells with you?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red Light Means Stop. (Shrieve)

Looking long and hard at the shifting runes he began to puzzle out the tangle of words and what he was translating was not filling him with confidence. Not only was he getting a feeling of dread but he was starting to feel a little bit of respect for whoever had actually drawn this circle. It was a masterpiece and even though it was downright evil he was impressed.

"I have some bad news and some even worse news Shrieve,"he began.The bad news is that this circle will not be easy to disrupt. The usual methods of tampering with it are out. Trying to rub any of it out or adding to it will just set off some nasty booby traps and protection spells you don't want to be on the end of. Well that's what's in the four Infernal parts and from what I can make out in the Fae as well. You can check the other two but I would bet my life they are there as well."

Shrieve's brow furrowed, her scarred but not-unlovely face a mask of concentration around the round lenses of her moonglasses. "Shut up a second, I'm crossreferencing--" she let out a low growl "--yeah. Shit. Yeah. Even firebombing the building's not an option. And you're saying it gets worse?"

He looked over at her and grimaced. "The really bad news is that this thing is a recharging station. From what I can gather it has been set up by the four princes of hell and someone real big in the Fae world for the sole purpose of gathering soul energy to recharge power." He looked her in the eye to make sure she understood the importance of his statement. "You understand what I am saying to you right? The four princes Azazel, Belial, Beelzebub and Lady Blaze who are normally at each others throats, have come together to construct this. That is how powerful and how important this thing is."

"Let's not blow this out of proportion," Shrieve cautioned. "I know hellfire is your natural habitat, but stay frosty. Remember, Thy Father Who art in Tinseltown is The Father of Lies-- there could be any number of shellgames happening here with this Ronnie James Dio 'Rainbow in The Dark.' The factions of Hell have been playing a multidirectional tug of war ever since The Morningstar bolted with the barn door open, if they finally got their shit together I'm not gonna believe it unless I see it with my two eyes. But that soul thing-- that soul thing's a problem. With its energy properly stoked, a single human soul is like the psychospiritual equivalent of a suitcase nuke."

Then a word caught his eye and he traced a small passage. 'Young souls given freely shall I take'. So was someone out there making deals or what?Well it was the only clue they had. "Got a clue here Shrieve. They are taking young souls and supposedly they are being given away willingly. Ring any bells with you?"

Shrieve opened her mouth, and shut it again, and frowned. Something... Welsh? "Actually. Maybe. Distant bells, of the Edgar Allan Poe variety. Let me think on that for a sec."

She was flying a little blinder than usual, here.

For one rare moment, she wished she still had access to S.H.A.D.E.'s little nest of psychics and prophets-- even if they were worthless for specifics, too little too late, they were better than nothing.

Still, she wasn't stupid.

"If this is a dumping point for soul energy," she wondered, "where is that energy coming from? There might be some kind of astral funneling effect, directing the tapped soul power to this point? Maybe we can backhack it or triangulate it somehow--"

She reached back inside her coat and pulled out the demon detector she'd used to trace Blue Devil here.

"Maybe we can MacGyver something. Maybe use your trident to ping the transmitters, while I use these--" she held up the detector and the scrying pendant "--to get a vector?"

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Shrieve's brow furrowed, her scarred but not-unlovely face a mask of concentration around the round lenses of her moonglasses.

"If this is a dumping point for soul energy," she wondered, "where is that energy coming from? There might be some kind of astral funneling effect, directing the tapped soul power to this point? Maybe we can backhack it or triangulate it somehow--"

She reached back inside her coat and pulled out the demon detector she'd used to trace Blue Devil here.

"Maybe we can MacGyver something. Maybe use your trident to ping the transmitters, while I use these--" she held up the detector and the scrying pendant "--to get a vector?"

Danny nodded. That wasn't a bad idea. Looking at the circle he was sure he could tap into the different energies of the layers and send out a trace pulse with his lance so he could follow it. If he was able to send that pulse through her detector and she used her scrying pendant over a map of the city while using it maybe they could find a location. It was a long shot but it was either that or go all over the city physically and that would take time they really did not have.

Of course the had to find a map first. I don't suppose you have a map on you do you? I do have a way to conjure one but the energies of that may interfere with the magic we are going to use so I don't want to risk it."

He looked at her and smiled. "What I am thinking is this. If I use my trident to match the frequencies of each layer and then if I project each frequency one at a time into your Demon detector it should then pick up where the other portal is.Then you can use your Scrying pendant to find it's location on a map of the city by tuning it into the demon detector if possible."

He looked at her with a troubled look on his face and then looked around. "Of course this all depends on whether or not all these elements work together and the portals are actually in this city. I am open to any other suggestions but this seems the quickest and I am guessing quick is of importance here. I know how much a soul is worth in hell and this is set up to take hundreds, if not more. Even divided up it is a massive amount of energy here."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red Letter Day. (Shrieve)

I don't suppose you have a map on you do you? I do have a way to conjure one but the energies of that may interfere with the magic we are going to use so I don't want to risk it."

Shrieve smirked wryly at that, and then held up her smartphone, and then began to cue up GPS. "It's like my old grandpa Matthew Shrieve Senior taught me while we were hunting giant spiders on Miracle Mesa for practice-- 'navigation skills'll get you through times o' no conjurin' better'n conjurin'll get you through times o' no navigation skills.'" She paused, reflected. "Bad-ass old man. Went after the wrong Plant Elemental without backup, got turned into a lycan made of lichen. I had to take him out with a cropduster. Damn shame."

She glanced at Blue and smiled faintly. "Sorry. You were saying?"

He looked at her and smiled. "What I am thinking is this. If I use my trident to match the frequencies of each layer and then if I project each frequency one at a time into your Demon detector it should then pick up where the other portal is.Then you can use your Scrying pendant to find it's location on a map of the city by tuning it into the demon detector if possible."

Shrieve nodded. "That sounds almost halfway like a plan, congrats." She waved the demon detector at him. "This thing was made in collaboration with Harry Houdini and Nikola Tesla-- it may be way over a hundred years old, but it gets wifi."

He looked at her with a troubled look on his face and then looked around. "Of course this all depends on whether or not all these elements work together and the portals are actually in this city. I am open to any other suggestions but this seems the quickest and I am guessing quick is of importance here. I know how much a soul is worth in hell and this is set up to take hundreds, if not more. Even divided up it is a massive amount of energy here."

"Don't get your horns in a twist," Shrieve admonished him. "The world is always on the brink of destruction. The Doomsday Clock is slow. You were on The Justice Society, you were an Agent of S.H.A.D.E., you know this shit cold. We are the bad-asses that keep the planet spinning on, keep the human species from getting rendered extinct by countless nameless things that make the whole night go 'bump.' We don't get that done by getting twitchy at the recon phase, you got me?"

Setting the demon-detector on the floor and holding her smartphone out in front of her with the scrying pendant dangled over it, she then looked again expectantly at Blue Devil.

"Go big, Blue," she told him in no uncertain tones, "or go home, and I'll radio back to base and tell 'em to send out someone who will go big."

 

[Lunaramblings]

Chas had been through a great deal over the last several years. At first he hated John. Called him a selfish bastard. He couldn't face the creature he had become. John claimed he did it for Chas' family. But how could they accept this.

Chas took the moniker Frankenstein. To him Chas was gone. He spent a year just wandering. Until Michael the Archangel showed up. He told Chas his new predicament put him in an interesting place. As a being with only a partial soul, and the ability from a combination of the awakening process and the old spell John had cast to absorb the souls of not only.the just that fell around him, but now the ability to absorb both fallen and non-fallen angelic power he was a perfect choice to help Michael track down the.last members of the traitorous Host.

For a year he tracked down the remnants of The Rising Darkness. With aid from Michael he took down at least a dozen of them. Michael was impressed and even gave him his sword as a token. During the last raid Frankenstein would run into a team from SHADE. He was invited to join the organization. Which he did. He moved to Seattle working with a small cell where he became close with Liv Moore. She helped him find his humanity again. And even convinced him to seek his family.

Turned out John had told the truth and they knew about what he was and accepted him. Mostly because of John and the work he did. At that point he knew he had to make amends. And he did. John even came to SHADE for a while. In the end he went his own way as John tends to do. And when SHADE went underground Frank and John reunited. Since then they have been doing what ever they could.

Frankenstein laughed out loud as he broke from his reminiscing and realized he missed the exit they wanted. He reached out with a massive hand and shook John as he pulled a hard uturn scaring the hell out of him as he screamed as if they were about to be in a horrific crash.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Shrieve smirked wryly at that, and then held up her smartphone, and then began to cue up GPS. "It's like my old grandpa Matthew Shrieve Senior taught me while we were hunting giant spiders on Miracle Mesa for practice-- 'navigation skills'll get you through times o' no conjurin' better'n conjurin'll get you through times o' no navigation skills.'" She paused, reflected. "Bad-ass old man. Went after the wrong Plant Elemental without backup, got turned into a lycan made of lichen. I had to take him out with a cropduster. Damn shame."

Danny gave her a strange look. He couldn't tell if she was joking or deadly serious. Then again knowing Shrieve she was probably telling the honest truth. It was amazing how members of her society tended to die.

Shrieve nodded. "That sounds almost halfway like a plan, congrats." She waved the demon detector at him. "This thing was made in collaboration with Harry Houdini and Nikola Tesla-- it may be way over a hundred years old, but it gets wifi."



"Don't get your horns in a twist," Shrieve admonished him. "The world is always on the brink of destruction. The Doomsday Clock is slow. You were on The Justice Society, you were an Agent of S.H.A.D.E., you know this shit cold. We are the bad-asses that keep the planet spinning on, keep the human species from getting rendered extinct by countless nameless things that make the whole night go 'bump.' We don't get that done by getting twitchy at the recon phase, you got me?"

Setting the demon-detector on the floor and holding her smartphone out in front of her with the scrying pendant dangled over it, she then looked again expectantly at Blue Devil.

"Go big, Blue," she told him in no uncertain tones, "or go home, and I'll radio back to base and tell 'em to send out someone who will go big."

Danny glared at her. "Listen Shrieve I do know the score and I have no problems doing what needs to be done. Hell lady I have seen the big four face to face and even Mr Hell himself 'Lucifer' so I don't scare easy. However I hate to rush into things of this magnitude without a backup plan. What happens if we fuck this up? No one else knows about this and if we fail that does no one any good. We have to let someone else know. You get a message to S.H.A.D.E. or the Hunters and I will contact my employer and then we will do this thing."

Danny took his phone out of his pocket and quickly typed out a message outlining what he had found and where it was and sent it off to James. He also told him he would contact him in 24 hours but if he didn't to pass on the info to someone who could deal with it.

Turning back to Shrieve he hefted his trident and looked at the circle.
"Right, Let's get this party started."
He began to use it almost like a tuning fork, resonating it through the magic energies the violet circle was putting out until he felt the ones from his trident and the circle mesh together.

"Okay have your stuff ready, and hold onto your precious parts because here we go."

He aimed his trident at the demon detector and began to feed the energy into it a little at a time. He only wanted to feed enough into it to get a reading, he definitely did not want to overload the thing.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red Line Overload. (Shrieve)

Danny glared at her. "Listen Shrieve I do know the score and I have no problems doing what needs to be done. Hell lady I have seen the big four face to face and even Mr Hell himself 'Lucifer' so I don't scare easy. However I hate to rush into things of this magnitude without a backup plan. What happens if we fuck this up? No one else knows about this and if we fail that does no one any good. We have to let someone else know. You get a message to S.H.A.D.E. or the Hunters and I will contact my employer and then we will do this thing."

Well, that worked a treat.

Bluffing about radioing back to base and needling his ego had irked Blue Devil enough that he'd rationalized his way through his hesitation. Good. She couldn't collect on a favor-- a trip to Star City through its local branch of The Oblivion Bar, a hop skip and an Uber ride from her Impala --if he didn't follow through on the hunt.

She smirked faintly to herself and checked her email while he pinged his contact or handler or whatever. She didn't have back-up to call. Not anymore. She supposed if she died or disappeared, S.H.A.D.E. or one of the Ancestral Order of Hunters would investigate the circumstances in some rinky-dink fashion, she supposed that counted.

Turning back to Shrieve he hefted his trident and looked at the circle.
"Right, Let's get this party started."
He began to use it almost like a tuning fork, resonating it through the magic energies the violet circle was putting out until he felt the ones from his trident and the circle mesh together.

"Okay have your stuff ready, and hold onto your precious parts because here we go."

He aimed his trident at the demon detector and began to feed the energy into it a little at a time. He only wanted to feed enough into it to get a reading, he definitely did not want to overload the thing.

...but even a little, with this, was a lot.

The effect on the demon detector was basically instantaneous-- it instantly forgot that Blue Devil was even there and snapped hard to point in a northwesterly direction.

Shrieve's map app flickered, briefly showing, not a map of New York City, but Wales-- oh shit I was right Wales --but then flickered back to The Big Apple before hurriedly zooming out...

...a red dot glowed over the upstate town of New Carthage, not far from Sleepy Hollow...

...but then things started to go haywire.

More power started to crackle through the trident than was-- expected-- Shrieve shot Devil a look like whoa, dial it back, what the Hell are you trying to pull but then her phone crashed, lightning surged in the darkness of the room--

--an afterimage of a scowling, malignant face carved out of chain-lightning and the stench of ozone--

--and then everything exploded.

Shrieve's phone crashed, the demon detector lit on fire, the scrying pendant burst into a ball of light and was gone, Shrieve found herself driven to one knee by the sudden concussion of the power surge--

--when she opened her clenched eyes a second later, she found she was seeing in color.

Her moonglasses weren't working anymore but then again, the dark-field had ripped apart like the Temple curtain on Easter.

She hesitated.

All the magic had gone from the room.

For an instant. For just an instant. She felt a pang of concern.

Whipped her head around, and yelled against the ringing in her ears: "BLUE!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Black Veil Brides. (Black Alice)

Listlessly, Lori trudged down the street away from her school.

Another useless day of Summer School over with, another day of the revulsion of Dawn and her former Wiccan sisters-- they'd both missed a lot of classes during their feud, and that on top of Lori's shattered emotional life and... other complications.

She wanted so badly to graduate-- to get out of this town free and goddamn clear. But even though she was 18, she couldn't get her diploma 'till she'd made up one or two more stupid stupid stupid class credits.

All this power, and she was held back, held down, held here, by that fucking glaring "INCOMPLETE" stamped on her transcript.

She could give up, of course, walk away, get her G.E.D. or some damn thing.

But she wasn't a quitter, just like she'd told Janeane outside this morning's support group.

And giving up was a whole goddamn lot like letting Dawn win, and no way in Hell was she--

"Blessed Be," a weary but gentle voice uttered.

Lori stopped in her tracks, turned, frowned.

Sitting on the steps of a rundown old house that Lori had walked past a dozen hundred times but never seen anyone leave or enter was a young woman about Lori's age.

She had skin as pale as moonlight's ghost, and hair as dark as midnight in mourning. On a leather string around her neck, she wore a silver ankh, and her eyes were made up with cat's-eye make-up, like The Eye of Horus.

Lori frowned at her, troubled by the lack of recognition-- "Uh, Blessed Be yourself. Do I know you? I don't think I've seen you 'round the local Circle. Not that I've gotten to Call the Quarters with anyone lately-- you better not let 'em see you talking to me--"

The girl laughed, and it was a pretty laugh despite her obvious fatigue, like handbells with a children's church choir on Christmas Eve. "No, I'm not with them. And honestly, you shouldn't let their 'excommunication' get you down. Like many faiths, Wicca is a personal journey of the heart, other people don't get to kick you out of that. You find your own Path, Lori."

Lori took a step back, squinting. Dangerous energies gathered behind her eyes, any second now her fight-or-flight was gonna kick in and she was going to have some random-ass power to wipe the floor with this bony bleached chica... "You keep acting like you know me. You really don't."

The girl's smile faded, and she spoke with portents and importance. "Yes I do, Lori Zechlin, tumbling down the rabbit hole like some Alice in Wonderland dressed all in black. And you know who I am."

Lori hesitated.

Maybe it was some kind of Damascus Road revelation, like the scales falling from her eyes. Maybe it was something about the power she had been trying to gather together, she tuned into a higher frequency for a moment and saw through the mundane like Supergirl's X-ray vision. Or maybe it was just as simple as remembering someone you'd met long ago but couldn't place them until just... now.

"Yeah," Lori mumbled, her eyes widening. "I know who you are."

The girl patted the step next to her and budged over a bit so that Lori could sit with her.

And after a long moment's thought, Lori did so.

As she sat, Lori gazed quietly at the girl. "I should give you so much shit right now. For taking my mom and leaving my dad. For taking my two goldfish when I was four--"

"I gave them a good home," she replied, quietly, gazing down at her own hands, playing with her own fingers. "The goldfish, I mean. I'm sorry about your mom. But I don't get to pick and choose, that's not how this works. I have a job and I do it."

"Yeah," Lori clenched her eyes shut for a moment, clenched her hands into fists, then opened all four. "Must be a hard job, too. You look how I feel."

"It's been a rough ten years," the girl admitted. "Ever since Lucifer swanned off out of Hell, souls keep slipping through the gates, and I have to put them back again, me or one of the psychopomps that work for me whether they realize it or not, Boston Brand, Willie Walker, The Raven Host... And then-- then there's this business in Gotham, oh, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, I am not looking forward to that busting wide open."

"I'll just kind of nod blankly, here," Lori gazed at her askance, "and just assume that if I was supposed to know what you were talking about you'd tell me."

The girl laughed faintly. "Here's a thing. Here's a thing that I do need to tell you about. I don't normally-- interfere with murder-- I don't get to pick and choose-- but there's something big and deep and dark abusing the trappings of my realm in order to get an advantage on the spiritual plane. Speaking of Hell-- the Grove of Suicides is becoming overgrown, spurred on by terrible machinations. And because I'm stretched so thin right now... there's nothing I can do about it."

"I need you to help me, Lori."

"You're saying," Lori stared at her with wide eyes, "you're saying that someone's making people commit suicide with magic? Is-- is that what happened to my mom? Is that what keeps happening to me, so that I have to keep going to that stupid--"

"No," she shook her head. "No, no. 'Nothing has befallen you but that which is common to Man.' I feel for your emotional state-- if I had my way, Life would be the glorious other side to the coin that is my realm-- but as sad as it is, it's just human circumstance. But these... forces. They're putting other people what you and your mom have gone through, and worse. They're destroying families, feeding a pitch black pit-- they're taking the darkness that's gnawed at your soul, that consumed your mother, and they're using it as a weapon. And that cannot stand."

If it had been anyone else.

If it had been anyone else.

If it had been anyone else, Lori would have flashed her two middle fingers and stalked off. She had her own shit to deal with. Her own life to live. Her own territory to carve out.

But this was--

--this was--

Lori squinted again. "What do you need me to do?"

"New Carthage, New York," she told Lori, as she rose to stand.

"Find a way to get there. And don't tell anyone your True Name, okay? That's important."

"I have to shore up my realm, but I'll check back in with you as soon as I can."

She reached out and didn't... quite... touch Lori's face. "Thank you."

Lori opened her mouth to ask another question... but there came a sound like the rushing of mighty wings, and the girl was gone.

Lori closed her mouth again. Opened it, shook her head, rolled her eyes.

"Figures."

"What the fuck even is my life now?"

"Getting chucked into the deep end of the pool without a bigger boat."

"Talking to--"

--she gestured helplessly to the empty spot where the girl had stood, let her hand fall limp to her side--

"--myself."

She took a deep breath.

She'd never... consciously... made the change before.

But if she needed to get from Dayton to this "New Carthage," she had to find some unconventional means of travel. Maybe if she got that teleporting misfit girl again...

...she reached out far...

...she reached deep in...

...and almost entirely by accident she managed to trip that nameless breaker...

...energy piled up in her like it had nowhere else to go and she heard, as it were, the distant sound of an old rotary phone spinning out its numbers.

shhhhhCLICK!

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Danny looked at Shrieve and from the looks of things everything was working well. For a spur of the moment plan everything seemed to be going well. He was keeping the flow down to a trickle as he sensed the enormous power he had tapped into.

Then he felt a presence, something gigantic and truly powerful and things began to go horribly wrong.

The power flowing into his trident increased and he couldn't disconnect from the circle. He saw Shrieve look at him in anger but he was too busy trying everything he could think of to break the connection to reply to that look.

Then with a surge it took out her phone, her detector and her scrying crystal. He just hoped they had gotten some useful information before it all went Kablooie. One good thing though was that the connection had been severed.

Then he looked up and saw it, the face of something demonic made out of crackling energy just hovering in the air watching the two of them. He wasn't sure if Shrieve had seen it yet but the power he sensed from it was like nothing he had ever felt before, not ever from the king of hell himself. He began to level his trident at it when the world literally exploded around him.

He saw the Detector catch on fire and the pendant explode in a large ball of light. He felt his trident scream in his head as he was blasted across the room and through two walls out into the living area. He ended up in a heap behind the large lounge chair, battered and bruised but not overly hurt.

Getting to his feet with a small wobble he attempted to shake the cobwebs and the ringing from his ears. What the hell had that been? As the ringing died down he heard Shrieve's shout.

"Yeah Shrieve, out here," he yelled "Did we get anything useful before everything went to shit or not?"

Dammit they better have. He did not want to feel this way for nothing.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Trying to find my peace of mind behind these two white highway lines. (Revenant.)

Since she was in the neighborhood, Time suggested that Liv hang out for the interdepartmental briefing.

The thing about Father Time's suggestions was that you didn't want to wait for him to insist.

And so she sat, with Ravi on one side of her, Lagoon Boy on the other, in the small auditorium in operational central that they used for the briefings.

Father Time was up at the front talking about something to do with The Goddess Ixchel and a team he had down in The Yucatan, gesturing to a holographic interactive presentation projected onto the wall behind him.

Liv had a notepad in front of her and was idly doodling with a red pen, barely even watching what she was doing.

Usually when she did this, Javier Abano kicked in and she wound up sketching something sensual and abstract.

But this time--

"Oi," Ravi murmured, elbowing Liv. "What's that you've got going there?"

"Hm?" Liv blinked, and then refocused on the notepad in front of her.

And discovered, with a start, that she had started writing the same phrase over and over again. Lyrical, flowing lettering.

In her head, Liv immediately transliterated it: DESHI DESHI BASARA.

She blinked again. "...the Hell?"

Lagoon Boy glanced over. "Oh, that's-- actually I can't remember if it's Moroccan Arabic or Mongolian, but colloquially it means--"

"'Rise,'" Liv murmured, having picked up one or both of those languages from some brain or another, and it made her slow-beating heart feel even clammier than usual. This must have been something that Palermo had been working on before he died, but how odd for it to go directly to her subconscious rather than manifesting as visions?

She and Ravi exchanged a perplexed look, but before they could bring this to Time's attention, an analyst came sprinting into the room looking almost as pale as Liv did.

"Sir!" he panted. "Sir! We've had an unexpected and nearly unprecedented mystical surge, the Departments of War and Death are in hysterics--"

Time turned from him and gestured to the holoscreen behind him. "Scrying map. Now."

S.H.A.D.E.'s master computer barely hesitated before displaying first the contiguous 48 United States-- then New York State-- showing a bright neon flash of current darting between New York City and a specific locus upstate before vanishing.

"Enhance," Time demanded, and not a single soul in that room dared give him crap for the cliche.

Obediently, the map zoomed in.

"New Carthage," Time rumbled.

Then swung his gaze out into the room and locked onto Liv.

"Whatever this is, I'll bet my other half's left kidney Constantine's in the thickest part of it. Agent Revenant. You're up."

Liv arched pale eyebrows with surprise, and then lowered them with resignation, murmuring to Ravi and Lagoon Boy: "Guess I better rise to the occasion."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red Handed. (Shrieve)

"Yeah Shrieve, out here," he yelled "Did we get anything useful before everything went to shit or not?"

Okay.

Despite the crater in the wall-- two walls? --Blue Devil was still breathing.

That instant of concern passed as though it had never been.

Good. It was good that he was still breathing. He was still useful, his death would be premature. Shrieve didn't bother inquiring further about his condition.

She whipped her coat off of her shoulders and threw it over the demon detector, stepping on it with booted feet to squash out the flames, and only after she did so did she respond to Blue Devil.

"Yeah."

"Little place upstate called 'New Carthage.' I think it's a wannabe Syracuse."

"We better get out of here before hotel security shows up, I don't feel like breaking some bellhop's jaw right now."

"I got a dark-cherry vintage Triumph parked outside, that won't have gotten caught in any damned 'magic EMP,' you can ride pillion."

She picked up the demon detector carefully, made a face at its singed edges.

It probably still worked, Nik Tesla built things to last, but damn, you talk about vintage...

The scrying pendant, she could order another one from Cassandra Craft out in San Francisco, dime a dozen, but the demon detector was one of a kind. She could practically feel two generations of Matthew Shrieve rolling in their grave, and one of those generations hadn't even been into monster-hunting.

Her phone binged as it powered sluggishly back on, and she donned her singed coat and the rest of her gear, made ready to fire her grapnel out through the window for a speedy getaway.

"C'mon, Duke. Faster would be better than slow."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Blacktop Blues. (Black Alice)

The change rushed through her.

And a name burned in her mind-- Traci Thirteen.

There came, of course, the usual compulsion to bellow the name aloud, but Lori shoved this compulsion down. Who the Hell shouted their name when they transformed, like some kind of anime character or Power Ranger?

Instead, Lori took stock. Glanced down at herself, turned and glanced in one of the windows of the house to use it as a mirror.

She looked bad-ass, no question-- some kind of scarification down the left side of her face and neck, a sweet "13" tattoo over her Third Eye chakra... The ripped pants were sweet, Lori absently wondered if Traci dressed like that or if it was due to Lori's influence.

...but, hey, this was new, she looked biracially Asian.

"Oh, God," Lori muttered. "Talk about cultural appropriation. Being a weeaboo was an Internet fail-cliche a decade ago, people are gonna take this so wrong."

She took a breath-- reminded herself to stay focused--

--there was a lot of power in this package, a surprising amount, and smarts, too, like this person had actually studied magic instead of just accessing it like the misfit or the die-caster. And the more power she got, the shorter the time she had it.

"Okay, Trace," Lori frowned. "Let's see what you've got under your hood."

...instinct took over, autopilot...

...Lori felt Traci's template access urban magic, tapping into the collective energies of cities. Dayton spread out like a map of lights in her mind, hospitals and aerospace engineering, Wright-Patterson and Kettering Tower and the rest of the skyline, all the busy people bustling about their lives, all that interconnected synergy, church and school and work and joy and pain and sex and tears, steel jutting up from concrete and peaceful parks...

...but the interconnectedness didn't just end with Dayton.

Distantly, beyond the horizon, she could "see" the glow of other cities dotting the landscape, some brighter than others, burning with more collective psychic energy...

....she could see thin strands of aetheric webbing stretching between those points of light... a network connecting all cities in the world with each other, she could go to London or Taipei or Opal City as easily as turning around or clicking her heels together...

...she squinted, strained.

New Carthage was a town, not a city, not urban enough to appear on this map in her head.

But New York City glowed like the cornerstone of the world, there not far from Newark and the black pit of fear that Gotham had become, and Lori let out a breath...

...and she was standing on the steps of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, between the lions, the branch of The New York Public Library on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, her short hair billowing in a breeze of mystic passage.

A number of people glanced at her absently like they didn't see her come up, but she ignored them.

Instead she looked skyward.

"Carthago delenda est," she intoned, ironically, and she drew on the massive pool of power provided by The City That Never Sleeps, enabling her to defy physics...

...especially gravity.

She soared skyward, fists out in front of her like she'd seen Supergirl do on TV.

North.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Danny picked himself up none the worse for wear and looked around. So he was in the living room then, just how had he made it out here? Then he spotted the holes in the walls and grimaced. Ahh that was how. Guess that magic backlash had been a real bitch. Still if he was out here how was Shrieve still inside the room? He was puzzling over that as he walked over to retrieve his trident and make sure it was still working. He had a funny feeling about it just before he had been thrown like a ragdoll and he wanted to make sure it was alright.

As he picked it up though Shrieve called out an answer to his question.

"Yeah."

"Little place upstate called 'New Carthage.' I think it's a wannabe Syracuse."

"We better get out of here before hotel security shows up, I don't feel like breaking some bellhop's jaw right now."

"I got a dark-cherry vintage Triumph parked outside, that won't have gotten caught in any damned 'magic EMP,' you can ride pillion."

He supposed she was right. Their little stunt was sure to have attracted attention and while the circle would have some sort of protection to make itself invisible to any investigators, they sure wouldn't. Well at least they had somewhere to go. Strapping the trident to his back He was making his way to the room when she called out again.

"C'mon, Duke. Faster would be better than slow."

He smiled. Oh she wanted fast did she. He walked in and saw her preparing to fire a grappling gun. "What do you think you are doing Shrieve, I thought you said you wanted a fast getaway." He picked her up and headed for the windows. Looking out he spied a dark alley across the street and smiled. "Hang on now, and do try to keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle until the ride comes to a complete stop."

With that he crouched and sprang out the already blown out window heading for the alley with Shrieve clutched in his arms.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red in the Face. (Shrieve)

He smiled. Oh she wanted fast did she. He walked in and saw her preparing to fire a grappling gun. "What do you think you are doing Shrieve, I thought you said you wanted a fast getaway." He picked her up and headed for the windows. Looking out he spied a dark alley across the street and smiled. "Hang on now, and do try to keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle until the ride comes to a complete stop."

With that he crouched and sprang out the already blown out window heading for the alley with Shrieve clutched in his arms.

He reached for her, and immediately she thought of four different ways she could kill him--

--wait, would her Kurdish knife still work on him after the room had all its enchantments blown out?

--would holy water--

--and it was that hesitation that let him get his arm around her, she barely had another chance to sputter "Watch the hands!"--

(Say what you might about her dragonslaying dragon-lady personality, she had a body built for Hollywood and there would be plenty of places for a fella to grab her that might not go so hot without permission.)

--before they were hurtling out the window and he was landing in a crouch.

--she shoved and rolled away from him, the magic was back, she found that her moonglasses were showing the world in pale moonlight again and she was ready to dance with this Devil--

--her knife was in her hand and she grimaced bitterly.

"You ever pull any of that single-bound shit again without goddamn checking first," she scowled down the length of the blade at him, "I will give you The Mark of fucking Zorro, are we perfectly fucking clear?"

Then she flipped the knife, tossed it to herself, shoved it in its sheath and stalked hurriedly to her motorcycle.

"This is what I get for working with a stuntman," she grumbled as she went, pocketing her moonglasses and blinking out in the sunlight.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Danny watched her stalk away and chuckled. Had she really been scared? The great Shrieve, master Hunter and all around cool as can be lethal killer of all that stalked the night scare of a little jump.

No that was not it, Danny thought to himself. It was the loss of control that she had been scared of. She had been in his hands and not her own and that was what had scared her. He shook his head as he moved his way to the end of the alley. Was she really that bad that even that momentary lapse had caused her to act that way.

Of course he could be reading the situation all wrong and she could just be really that pissed at him. Still he did think she had overreacted just a little. She was never in any danger and she had said she wanted out of there quick.

As he watched her stalk away he got some decidedly unchristian like thoughts. Whatever else she might be she was definitely one good looking woman. Even the coat she was wearing couldn't disguise that fact and he enjoyed the view as she walked up the alley in front of him.

Ahh dammit, he thought shaking his head. Sometimes his corrupt side got the better of him. Still he had to agree with it, she was a very good looking woman but he knew nothing would ever happen between him and her. It was not even because of what he was. He had never even heard of Shrieve having any interests in those pursuits and if she did it would probably be done in her usual way. Under her rules.

Sighing he waited for her to bring her bike over to the alley mouth. They were going to attract enough attention as it was, no need to start now with him walking around in the daylight.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red Ryder. (Shrieve)

If Shrieve had had any kind of extrasensory awareness of Danny's thought process, there, she might have reluctantly conceded that he was insightful.

She hadn't been scared, of course. Even if he'd dropped her, she'd still had the grapnel, she could have saved herself.

It was the loss of control that had her so angry.

And... and it was being touched by... a creature. When she hadn't been braced for it. Hadn't been on the delivering end of a crippling strike.

Of course she knew that if he was going to ride behind her on the motorcycle, he'd probably have to have an arm or two around her waist. But that would be a necessary evil. Him grabbing her when she already had a perfectly viable, swift, and efficient exit strategy was very-- unnecessary.

Especially when he reminded her how much more powerful he was than she.

A Hunter wasn't like a mythic Vampire Slayer-- they had no super powers to give them advantages in a fight against demons, only weapons, training, ingenuity, nerve, planning. She was strong for a human, about as strong as a human could get without being superhuman. But everything a Hunter fought outclassed her in speed, strength, senses, lifespan...

...a Hunter knew this going in. It was their first lesson.

They were always the smallest fish in a big, shark-infested pond.

Oh, what a Hunter could do if they had half the power of one of the species they could be called upon to hunt, oh, the damage they could wreak and the good they could do. But that wasn't their lot, not their fate. Not their duty.

Getting reminded of that at the hands of an... ally. With his... irritatingly powerful frame... and his... vexing incubus charisma...

That's enough thoughts like that.

I just said I wasn't like Buffy, didn't I?

I'm not going to miscegenate. I'm not going to debase myself by porking the enemy.

She rumbled up to the alley's mouth on the Triumph, glared at him.

"Get on."

"And watch the hands."

She squinted.

"If anyone looks at you funny on the Interstate, we'll just tell 'em you're a Hell's Angel. It won't even be a lie."

 

[Deleted member 1306910]

The Hill Building was a three story grey office space built more like a fortress or a prison than the usual rental space for lawyers and message therapists. It was a solid concrete block with very narrow windows and a single set of glass double doors through which one gained access. It sat on a too small parking lot that needed re-paving, but luckily there was only one business in the place. Craft Investigations.

Frank owned the whole property in fact, crappy parking lot and all. He didn't used to. But when he had been flat busted broke and on the verge of living on the streets, a mysterious inheritance had come his way. This property and a cool 2mil dollars.

All thanks to the notorious Darryl Hill. Uncle Darryl. The man who when Frank's parents died, when he was 13, took 2 years to come from whatever godforsaken african country he'd been in to adopt him out of the system. Then promptly went back to look for shakazuma's gold. Leaving Frank and Darryl's natural son, Marcus, to fend for themselves alone in Chicago.

Right here, in the Hill Building. Frank unlocked the front door and then locked it on the other side, setting the security system, causing steel shutters to lower over the glass doors, until dawn. Lights came on in the starwell, shutting themselves down until Frank made it to the third floor loft apartment, where the lights came on and stayed on. Frank put up his trench coat and took off his body armor, opening the steel door to the armory/workshop. He lay the vest out over a work bench.

Setting all of his various firearms and blades out on work tables for cleaning and repair, Frank leaned back, hands on his hips, cracking his back. He left the lights on in the armory and moved out into the apartment, walking into the kitchen, getting a cold bottle of craft soda from the fridge. Ever since he stopped drinking, this stuff had become his new vice. Sighing in satisfaction, Frank sat in his leather La-Z-Boy.

Picking up a remote control, Frank turned on the MP3 Player, starting up Charlie Parker's- All The Things You Are

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, breathing in the music.

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Danny watched Shrieve stalk across the road like she owned the world and everyone else was just there to amuse her. He watched as people instinctively got out of her way. It wasn't as if she was glaring at them or doing anything overtly hostile, it was more the way she carried herself and the way she walked. It was the same way a predator walked amongst a group of prey when it was not hungry. They prey knew it was safe for now but was on edge and ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. The hunter was totally at ease knowing it had nothing to fear and could pick off any one of the beasts surrounding it at anytime if it so wished.

Danny smiled at that thought. Oh yes Shrieve was a Hunter in more than one sense of the word. He watched as she retrieved her bike and then kicking it into life, pulled out into traffic, calmly cutting off three cars and pulling up in front of the alley.

"Get on."

"And watch the hands."

She squinted.

"If anyone looks at you funny on the Interstate, we'll just tell 'em you're a Hell's Angel. It won't even be a lie."

Danny laughed as he hoped on behind her and wrapped one muscular arm around her waist making sure it was well away from anything that would be considered a no go area. He had felt her kicks and punches before, and though they were not lethal to him they still stung and he had no wish to feel them again or indeed make her angry.

"So where to first S. I assume you are not going into this so lightly armed. Why you have got to be only carrying about four or five weapons on you," he chuckled. "For you that is practically naked. So we must be stopping off somewhere. Care to enlighten a poor lost soul,"he laughed even harder at his poor excuse for a joke.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Red Queen. (Shrieve)

Danny laughed as he hopped on behind her and wrapped one muscular arm around her waist making sure it was well away from anything that would be considered a no go area. He had felt her kicks and punches before, and though they were not lethal to him they still stung and he had no wish to feel them again or indeed make her angry.

"So where to first S. I assume you are not going into this so lightly armed. Why you have got to be only carrying about four or five weapons on you," he chuckled. "For you that is practically naked. So we must be stopping off somewhere. Care to enlighten a poor lost soul,"he laughed even harder at his poor excuse for a joke.

Shrieve pulled into traffic, giving a withering look to some of the drivers who were still honking and waving and flipping birds from where she'd cut them off just now.

Whatever. She was skilled enough a rider that she'd left plenty of a safety margin, and she had other priorities before their fragile little egos. She couldn't save them from a soul-stealing horror from the black heart of Perdition if she was waiting with her blinker going for an hour hoping for a gap in traffic.

Then she half-glanced that same withering look over her shoulder at Blue Devil.

He was being annoyingly insightful again.

Then again, he had worked with her before, he knew about her family's stockpiles from their S.H.A.D.E. days, and this was a fairly light load-out for her. Traveling in a major city in broad daylight had its disadvantages. Yeah. Relatively speaking, she felt... naked.

Didn't we just say we weren't going to think like that? Get your shit together, Miranda.

Whatever, next stop she could switch back to a car and get some solid trunkspace. Speaking of which...

"It's about half an hour to Sleepy Hollow from here," she called back to him over the rumble of the engine. "I'm going to stop there so you can use the little hellspawn's room and I can swap out some gear. Short hop from there to New Carthage. Any luck, we'll be done this gig by dinner."

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

"It's about half an hour to Sleepy Hollow from here," she called back to him over the rumble of the engine. "I'm going to stop there so you can use the little hellspawn's room and I can swap out some gear. Short hop from there to New Carthage. Any luck, we'll be done this gig by dinner."

Danny chuckled. Oh yeah he had a really good feeling that this was going to go down really well. Also he had a really nice block of land to sell you. It had great views, warm climate, the neighbors didn't bother you and the security on the place was to die for. And the price just couldn't be beat. Heck it only cost you something you didn't use anyway. Yeah right. He would never do anything like that and he knew this outing was not going to be the walk in the park Shrieve was making it out to be. Hell he didn't even think she believed it.

For the next ten minutes they rode in uncomfortable silence. Shrieve rode well above the speed limit weaving in and out of traffic, but it would be a brave cop who chased them. Danny got strange looks as they flew past cars and he sighed. Yeah the usual stares of horror and revulsion. Here he was on the back of a beautiful piece of machinery, with a woman who could grace the catwalks of any fashion house in the world yet what did people see. The big blue devil sitting on the back. Even the hot guys who would have normally zeroed in on Shrieve totally looked past her to him and then averted their eyes.

Same old story. Sure he was now one of the most powerful beings on the planet, able to go toe to toe with even a lord of hell or an Angel. He had helped save the planet a few times and countless lives while being a Hero, yet people just saw his looks and that was it.

He was still a young man and now virtually immortal and like all young guys he still liked the look of a good looking woman. Of course ever since his accident he had been denied the touch of one. I mean what woman would want to sleep with a blue devil? It had been over heck he could not remember how long since he had felt the touch of a woman.

Well there had been those few succubi while he had been in hell, but they had only been with him for his notoriety and he could not really get them to visit him on Earth. They needed their payment if they were summoned to the earthly plane and he was not prepared to pay that for a booty call.

It was especially hard at times like these. He was sitting behind a woman as beautiful as Shrieve, holding onto her and smelling her intoxicating scent and knew that he could do nothing about it. He just hoped that the ride was over soon and he could stretch his legs and maybe rearrange certain parts of his anatomy before he had to endure another torturous ride again.

 

[ChasNicollette]

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. (Shrieve)

Miranda Shrieve didn't know what the average statistical frequency was-- how many times your average guy thought about sex per minute as opposed to how often women did--

--but as they drove that ten minutes in silence with weird looks sliding across them, Shrieve was, perhaps, thinking about sex less often than Blue Devil.

The idle thought did occur to her--

--you're using him for his strength and power right now

would it be so different to use him for his body?

"frenemies" with benefits?

a body like that could do amazing things to your body

holding his horns like handlebars when you wrap your legs around his head--

--but grimly, teeth gritted, she shut that down.

Can't have a tense working relationship if you don't do the work.

She had quipped about solving this before dinner, but as she processed the limited information at their disposal, she knew they had stumbled onto something big. Something potentially world-shaking.

...would New Carthage become New Roanoke?

No, no, she had fried some serious fish-monsters in her day, skinned some ferocious leoanthropes, this-- she could do this.

She was born for this.

And if Blue Devil had sold his soul for the power to do this, well, she was going to cash in on that bargain. Whatever it takes.

She gunned the engine faster. Shaved off some more time.

Focused on what was ahead.

Mentally took inventory of the stockpile at Sleepy Hollow.

And then she squinted.

Glanced over her shoulder at her passenger.

"Hey. Blue. You still holding on back there?"

"I was just thinking. You think that you could-- do that again? Simulate that burst that drove the magic out of that room?"

"Seems like something that could come in handy."

 

[Aussie_Wolf]

Danny had been keeping silent as they rode. For one thing it was hard to talk on a motorcycle at the best of times and at the speed Shrieve was going it was next to impossible without putting his mouth next to her ear. He didn't think she would appreciate that so he refrained.

Of course he then thought about nibbling on said ear and then down her neck to those tight, pert breasts.

Okay Danny enough of that, keep your mind on the job.

He had kept his arm wrapped loosely around her waist, instead using the muscles in his legs to keep him solidly on the cycle. He knew she didn't want him touching her.

Running his hands all over her body. Up her legs, down her sides, spreading her legs apart as he...

Damn it why did every thought he have lead to something like that. Had it been that long? Actually yes, It had been, but he had a job to do.

Then she glanced back at him. Oh great had he been busted, did she know what he had been thinking.

"Hey. Blue. You still holding on back there?"

"I was just thinking. You think that you could-- do that again? Simulate that burst that drove the magic out of that room?"

"Seems like something that could come in handy."

Danny thought about it. It had been a combination of his staves energies, her Tesla devices and whatever that entity had been, but the staff had been the conduit. It should remember the frequency.

"Not sure about that, But I will check when we get to where we are going," he told her leaning forward and talking in her ear. " I have to see if the staff remembers the frequency of the blast. If it does I can even direct the blast so it doesn't knock out every magic device in a place but just the ones we want."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Road Beers and Red Vines. (Shrieve)

"Not sure about that, But I will check when we get to where we are going," he told her leaning forward and talking in her ear. " I have to see if the staff remembers the frequency of the blast. If it does I can even direct the blast so it doesn't knock out every magic device in a place but just the ones we want."

That voice in her ear elicited aggravated goosebumps.

Just what he was aggravating she decided against thinking about anymore for the moment. This was all too... distracting. If they were really going in against an evil as big as all outdoors, no "forbidden fruit" fantasy should take priority in her head.

So she squinted, and replied with gritted teeth: "Good. Good. We find a place to drop a burst like that, we stand a good chance at disrupting their whole operation."

"Unless they've got defenses against that sort of thing."

"Hrnh."

She drove in silence again for the next fifteen minutes, weaving through traffic, cutting down the white-dashed line between lanes when the other cars were gridlocked, the sort of driving that would be risky on busy city streets, much less the highway.

But soon they were rumbling along Sleepy Hollow's main street, taking it a little slower.

This place wasn't quite the hotbed of witchy activity that Salem was over in Massachusetts, but as a lesser hub it still put an itch under Shrieve's skin. Keeping an eye on the town was part of the reason The Shrieve Family had installed a foxhole here.

Speaking of which...

...Shrieve trundled her Triumph to a stop just outside a beautiful, tidily-kept cemetery, statues of saints and angels guarding the sleeping dead. Swinging her leg off of the motorcycle, Shrieve rolled out her shoulders like she was shaking something off--

--Blue Devil's touch, but she wasn't gonna tell him that--

--and then glanced at her passenger.

"You comin', Duke?"

And then she smirked a wicked little smirk.

"Oh, that's right. Holy ground. Sucks to be you, huh?"

She jutted a thumb towards the heart of the graveyard.

"You want me to get you anything while I'm out?"