Bad News

[hazlogs]

Date: 10/25/02

Currently in Saint Claire, it is foggy. The temperature is 41 degrees
Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the
east at 3 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.05 and rising, and
the relative humidity is 100 percent. The dewpoint is 41 degrees
Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius.)

Currently the moon is in the waning Gibbous Moon phase (73% full).

Harbor Park -- The Meadow

Luke and Alicia are over by a bench that Salem is well-acquainted with,
having met Luke there in the past. She's giving him a hug, and he says
something to her with a smile, probably wishing her well on the Fostern
challenge that he met her here to detail.

Salem spots the pair on his passage through the park and swerves his path
to head toward them, moving briskly.

Alicia lets out a breath and mulls a few things about in her mind, then
pulls her hair back into a tight pony tail. "You know, I should pick you
to tell me a story." She says with a smirk.

Luke hehs. "You could do that. I _do_ know a few. Though I bet Eamon or
Susan could give you some better ones."

Alicia grins at that. "I know. I was actually thinking of finding Layne,
since I know her better, and I see her a lot. Susan I barely know, and
I've only seen Eamon twice I think."

Tesla scuttles out from beneath Harbor Park fountain once the coast is
clear. The giant insect has flattened himself as low to the ground as is
possible, and his shell is a dark and bloody looking red.

Salem catches sight of the spirit on his way toward Luke and Alicia. The
Glass Walker stops short, frowning. "Tesla?"

Luke is rather surprised to see a gigantic roach -- it's not that often
that spirits choose to manifest in the realm, even when they can. Salem
seems to recognize it, though, so he asks, "Friend of yours?"

Feelers tremble pathetically as the spirit scurries over to practically
crawl into Salem's lap.

"That's our totem." Alicia says, making her way towards the roach,
quickly. "An he wouldn't show up in broad daylight unless it was
important."

"Synthesis' patron," the Walker answers Luke. His eyes are hidden behind
dark glasses, but a flicker of misgiving is visible, passing across his
face. He lays a hand on Tesla's carapace, stroking it.

Tesla chatters out to his pack *You guys really need to figure out a way
to talk to me, you know. This message would be a lot easier to deliver if
I didn't have to pull the Timmy fell down a well trick* And then he
scuttles slowly down from Salem's lap.

Salem shakes his head slightly, lips thinned into a grimace, and tilts a
questioning look toward the Fianna Theurge. "John's usually our
interpreter. Can you...?"

Luke closes his eyes, rubbing his forehead as if he's got a headache. Or
maybe is preparing to have one. And then he laughs at something, nearly
losing his concentration in the process. *Don't worry. Somehow people
talking to Lassie always know _exactly_ what questions to ask, and you'd
be surprised how much information 'woof' can get across.*

Alicia furrows her brows and kneels down next to Tesla, giving him a fond
stroking across his shell. "So, whats going on huh? You ok?" She asks
curiously.

The enormous roach looks up towards Luke. Surprise can't really register
on a giant insect, but its feelers twitch once and then it chatters again.
*You understand me! Tell them he is dead. Tell them!* There is an urgency
in the spirit's voice.

Salem folds his arms across his chest, his attention on the pack spirit.
As it starts chittering, he flicks a glance back up to Luke.

Luke replies, *Part of the job description.* Then, confused but looking
concerned, *Who is?*

"Man, he looks excited." Alicia comments as she scuffs her foot on the
ground some.

Salem grunts something that sounds like agreement. Behind the dark lenses,
his eyes are narrowed. In a sidelong mutter, he says, "I doubt that this
is good news."

The spirit rears up slighly, then comes down again with what may very well
be a wince of pain. *Ice-Walker. He fell in battle. He failed to see and
died. My fight took time to heal.*

Luke says, *Oh. Oh fuck.* Turning to Alicia and Salem, he takes a deep
breath before speaking. "John...John's dead." He didn't know the man very
well, but it wasn't that long ago that he was not far from here talking to
him.

Alicia blinks once, then bites on her lip hard. Swallowing tightly in her
throat, she glances away, staring at the ground, intently.

Tesla scuttles over to Alicia and strokes her gently with his feelers.

Salem goes completely still, his expression frozen. For a moment, he's at
a loss for words. His gaze goes from the Fianna to Tesla, then back to the
Fianna. Then, very quietly, his voice very... controlled, he asks, "How?
Battle?"

Luke nods. "Battle. 'He failed to see and died', is what it said."

Alicia sinks down to her knees and pulls the roach onto her lap, giving it
a half assed hug, stroking its back. She closes her eyes, taking a few
deep breaths, trying to calm herself.

"...Fuck." Salem all but whispers the word. And again, "Fuck." He sounds
too calm, even for him, especially considering the time of the lunar
month.

Alicia pricks her attention up a bit at Salem's words and turns her eyes
upon him, giving Tesla another pat on his shell. Sighing, she rises up
slowly and shakes her head a bit.

Tesla chitters unhappily and flicks his wing. *So I had to fight their
totem. That went poorly. Good at hiding. Good at sneaking. Not so good
with the frontal assault. *

Luke translates the gist of the spirit's explanation, but otherwise stays
quiet. Alicia's the only one he can even really try to offer comfort to,
since he doesn't know Salem much better than he did John, and there's not
really anything he can say even to her that would help.

"Was.. anyone else killed? He was on his Fostern challenge... with a pack
of Garou." Alicia says softly.

Salem unfolds his arms and pushes his hands deep into the pockets of his
coat. "First Francisco. Now John. Mm." Voice bland, expression unreadable,
he turns to Alicia. "I need to make a few calls. One thing, though, that I
need you to do."

Tesla chatters at Luke. *One other died, but I did not know her. *

Alicia rises up and glances over to Salem, tho' trading glances back and
forth with Luke as well, waiting to hear the outcome.

Luke says, "A female died, too. It didn't know her, though." Great, more
good news.

"Spread the word as necessary, but don't tell Rina." Salem pauses. "At
least, don't go out of your way to tell her. She'll find out soon enough."
He glances over toward Luke, acknowledging the information with a curt
nod.

Alicia nods her head to Salem, then glances back to Luke. "Was it the big
one, or the small one?" She asks.

Salem, upon receiving Alicia's nod, says nothing further and turns to go,
heading away from the fountain and toward one of the park exits.

Tesla stomps his feet in annoyance and grief. *Like I stayed to look. I
barely managed to distract their totem long enough to let the rest
survive. And that cost me greatly.*

[Later.]

Red Mill Apartments #219

This one-bedroom apartment is small, sparcely furnished, and kept at a
level of cleanliness and order that borders on the obsessive. A
greenish-gray couch, obviously secondhand, holds court in the main room,
accompanied by a low coffee table and a nearly empty bookshelf. In the
kitchen nook, which is separated from the living room by a stomach-level
counter, everything is gleaming and put away. The bathroom's cramped, and
the bedroom's just big enough for a twin bed, an end table, and a dresser.

At odds with the strict cleanliness of the apartment is the obvious
presence of cockroaches; one or two can occasionally be seen scurrying
from Point A to Point B unmolested by traps, poisons, or sprays. Indeed, a
small plate with fresh canned cat food has been set in a corner near the
kitchen nook, apparantly just for the benefit of these insects.

Salem returns hours sooner than the "about five or so" return time that
he'd told Cat upon leaving this morning. The only warning is a short
rattle of locks being undone, and then he's in.

Cat's seen Salem look grim. The look on his face now makes every other
expression seem blissfully carefree.

Cat's kneeling in the space between the couch and coffee table, his
artbook carefully spread before him. Circles and shadowy outlines of his
hand grace the first page of his sketchbook- he's going through exercises.
At the sound of the door the cub's head goes up, a small smile ready to
greet Salem. The smile fades quickly, at the cliath's expression.
"S-Salem-rhya?"

Salem looks like he might head right past the cub to the bedroom, but
instead he stops and looks down at the boy, dark lenses obscuring his
eyes. "John Smith is dead," he says, after a heartbeat's pause.

Cat blinks rapidly, his hand slowly lowering to rest on the page, pencil
lax in his fingers. He has no glasses to hide in the confusion and fear in
his eyes. "Mister John is dead?" he repeats softly, tone clearly
disbelieving. "He...but...but he..."

"He went with some other Garou to Seattle, to hunt Black Spiral Dancers as
part of his challenge for greater rank." Salem's voice is calm, too calm,
too bland, a voice like newsprint, black and white delivery of tragedy,
emotionless. "He died in battle. Him, and one other."

The news is too sudden, too much and too strange for Cat to express
anything other than quiet confusion. "He can't be dead," the cub insists
with soft, but clear, conviction. "He...he was Mister John. He's
getting..." A stumble over words. "Getting married to Miz Rina. He can't
die."

The muscles in Salem's jaw tighten, a crack in the ice-cold mask. "He can,
and he did. Our pack totem saw him die. The Wyrm doesn't care about
marriages, Cat." He turns and moves toward the bedroom, shrugging out of
the long black coat as he does so.

Cat stares after Salem, mouth slightly open in that surprised expression
he seems to wear so often. "But..." His sentence trails into nothingness,
and the still hand drops the pencil to flip to the back of the sketchbook,
where his first drawing is folded neatly. He unfolds it, running his
fingers over the faces and staring intently at the stick-figure of John.
Looking for something.

Salem, meanwhile, hangs his coat up in the hall closet and removes the
sunglasses, dropping them almost carelessly on the neatly-made bed along
with his wallet and keys. Out in the living room, Cat can hear the creak
of bedsprings as the Philodox sits down at the edge of the bed, and
there's silence after that.

The cub hears it, not that he notes it or recognizes it for anything
special. "Dead?" he murmurs softly. His gaze goes to the adjacent
stick-figure, the one that represents Rina. "But..." In the small tower of
order that makes Cat's world, a vital part has been removed, and it's all
in danger of falling apart. "But that's not what's supposed to happen."

The bedsprings squeak again a moment after the cub makes this statement,
and Salem emerges without coat or overshirt, just t-shirt and jeans and
boots, all black. At the doorway, he regards the boy flatly. "'Supposed
to' doesn't mean shit, Cat," he says. "These things happen. People die."

Slowly the cub looks at Salem, startled, bewildered. He holds his gaze of
the cliath for a moment, then looks back down at the terrible drawing
where the Walker family is depicted in 2-D splendor. The pencil comes back
to his fingers, and he flips it eraser-down. Then he pauses. "Miz Rina
will be sad," he says finally, voice even and matter-of-fact.

Salem looks away from the cub, his shoulders sagging as though under some
heavy weight. "...Yes," he says quietly. "She will be sad. Quite sad."

The pencil top starts to come down across John's face, but halts again,
before clattering gently on the table. "Should I cry?" Cat asks softly,
glancing up at Salem with a queerly desperate, lost expression.

Salem looks back at Cat. His own eyes are dry, brown one and blind one
both. Dry and dead. "If you want," he answers.

Cat considers that, unhappiness settling into the confusion in his eyes.
"Are you going to cry?" is the much softer question.

Interesting question. Salem shakes his head, his jaw tightening. "Grown
men," he tells the cub, "do not cry."

Again, the boy's fingers wrap around the pencil, this time the graphite
edge down. Slowly, with great purpose, an oval is drawn above
John-the-stick-figure's head. A halo. "Then I won't cry," he murmurs
resolutely, his unhappiness still brimming underneath his confusion, in
the pout on his face and the squint in his eyes. He goes over the halo
again and again, the line becoming darker and darker each time.

A muscle twitches under Salem's good eye as he witnesses this. Then, with
a Serbian oath muttered under his breath, he stalks into the kitchen.
"I'll probably be gone for most of the evening, tonight," he says, busying
himself with getting a glass of water.

At about the eighth circle, the soft penciltip snaps and Cat's forced to
lay it down, looking at the edited picture sadly. "Miz Rina?"

"Yes." Glass, ice, water. It doesn't take Salem long to put together the
necessary components, and there's nothing else to do in the kitchen. The
sink's clean, and the dishes are all put away. And it's not quite dinner
time yet. "Rhiannon and I are going to go see her. To... break the news."

There's silence, save for the rustling of the paper as Cat folds it again,
carefully and ceremoniously. "You c'n stay all night," he tells Salem,
glancing towards the kitchen. "She'll need you. To be brave."

"Mm." Salem drinks, then stares into the middle distance, thoughtfully,
his frown pensive. Then he looks at Cat. "We're running low on milk," he
says blandly. "Why don't you go out and pick some up."

If the boy is surprised by this request, he doesn't show it. He just gets
up from his spot on the floor and grabs his jacket (it was lying behind
him on the couch) and starts shrugging himself into it, slowly tucking in
his collar and tying his shoes. That unhappy, lost expression hasn't left
his face. "I've only seventy-five cents," he murmurs, hand withdrawing
from a pocket to show Salem the three quarters that remain.

Salem acknowledges the cub's lack of funds with a grunt, then sets the
glass down and vanishes into the bedroom. He returns a moment later,
wallet in hand, and hands over a twenty dollar bill. "Pick up a few other
things as well. And be sure to bring back the receipt."

Now the cub is visibly confused, but perhaps in a rare moment of insight,
keeps his mouth and doesn't continue with his questions. Just nods a bit,
tucking the twenty into the pocket with his quarters. There's a drone of a
list running in his head, of things he ought to buy. Toothpaste. Paper
towels. Milk, of course. And that nagging voice in his head that keeps
repeating at the oddest of times, John Smith is dead. Cat lets himself out
of the apartment, as quiet as his namesake.

Salem locks the door behind the cub, but leaves the chain off so he'll be
able to let himself back in with just the spare key. Then, methodically,
he pours out the rest of the water, letting the ice cubes sit to melt in
the drain. He washes the glass, sets it in the drain. Turns off the
lights. Goes into the bedroom and removes his boots. He lies down.

He doesn't sleep.