Curse and Confessions

[hazlogs]

[1/19/98]

Currently on this gusty and cold winter afternoon in the general St. Claire 
  area, it is 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1.1 degrees Celsius). The wind is coming 
  from the south-southwest at 17.9 mph. The ground is normal. Skies are hazy 
  with a possible chance of precipitation.
Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (56% full).

Andy's Old Fashioned Donuts
A small quaint donut shop, tastefully done in blue and white. A glass case, 
  showing a variety of fresh donuts stands at the back of the store. Standing 
  behind the glass case, a small old woman, looking to be in her sixties, is 
  busy with customers. A young girl, slightly taller than the old woman and 
  looking to be around sixteen rushes back and forth through a swinging door, 
  bringing out trays of donuts or coffee or other delicious smelling items.
A sturdy door to the south opens out onto the street. Small round metal tables 
  have been set out near the window, '+help places' will assist you in seating.

Sitting at one of the tables near the windows is Sally, an untouched donut on 
  a small paper plate before her and an extra-large cup of something steaming 
  beside it. She's looking out the plate-glass window, just sorta daydreaming.

A vintage, gold Plymouth Satellite grumbles into a slot out front. Nicodemus 
  clambers out, slams the heavy car door, and moves quickly to get inside the 
  shop and hurry over to the counter to place his order. He pays, collects a 
  medium cup of something hot along with a chocolate-coated donut, and turns 
  to find a place to sit.

Sally MacKay's eyes move over the car as it pulls up, then turn to watch for 
  the driver. As she recognizes him she smiles some and sits up, continuing to 
  follow him as he enters and orders, not calling attention to herself yet. 
  Only once he has his snack and drink in hand and is looking for a place does 
  she push the metal chair opposite hers away from the table, producing a 
  noticable scraping sound. She watches Nick to see if he'll look her way.

Nicodemus does indeed look Sally's way and, in fact, moves over to join her 
  without any further 'invitation'. He places objects on the table. "Too damn 
  early for sane people to be up." The goth slides into the seat, apparently 
  not having been up for more than an hour or two and still in a bit of a haze.

Sally makes a small sound of amusement, but for the most part doesn't look 
  much like she's pulled out of last night's funk. "It's," she pushes back her 
  sleeve to check the time, then lets it drop as she finds her wrist watchless 
  still. She continues with a small, wry smile, "It's not /that/ early."

"Three-ten is pretty early in my book," Nicodemus comments without consulting 
  a watch. An arm moves to slide his hot drink closer and pull the lid off. He 
  blows over the surface of the liquid to cool it off. "Have a wild night, 
  too?"

"Nah," Sally shakes her head and settles back into her chair. "Walked around, 
  hung out a bit, then went home and moved some boxes." She reaches out and 
  moves the little red stirrer through her drink as her eyes wander back to 
  the window. "You must have had a good night?" she asks idly.

The door opens again, emitting a blash of cold winter air and Salem.
  Stomping his feet a bit, the dark man blows into ungloved hands.

"One of those nights that takes the rest of the day to recover from," 
  Nicodemus claims as he hazards the perils of taking a sip of scalding 
  coffee. "You know how those are."

Sally MacKay's attention suddenly focuses on something outside, on the street 
  behind Nick. "Yeah, I do," she answers him, but it's clear her mind is no 
  longer on their conversation... until the door opens, that is. As if 
  prompted by the sudden burst of cold air, Sally picks up her cup and sips, 
  her eyes returning to the goth.

Salem rubs his hands together, grimacing, and then makes his way toward the 
  counter. He scans the interior of the shop, his eye passing over Sally and 
  her friend, lingering on the blonde perhaps. Perhaps not. He leans against 
  the counter and gazes at the poor woman behind it until she comes over to 
  take his order, wiping her hands nervously on her apron.

Nicodemus glances over his shoulder at Salem to see what Sally was watching, 
  then turns back to her. "Yeah, it was a pretty wild night, but I'm not one 
  to brag of exploits or bore with details." In fact, he drops the topic at 
  that and changes to another. "You ready for classes tomorrow? All the 
  pencils sharpened and fresh erasers and names written in textbooks?"

Once the dark Garou is past them and occupied with ordering, Sally's focus 
  becomes split again, more skewed towards Salem than Nick. "Yeah, but 
  tomorrow's not bad, I only have two. An afternoon one and then my night 
  class. You?"

"Coffee. Black." Salem busies himself with fishing cash from the inside of his 
  coat. Even spared the intense stare, the woman behind the counter is clearly 
  spooked, filling the man's order so quickly that she almost spills the 
  entire cup on the floor. Salem gives her a sour look, drops his money on the 
  counter, and takes his coffee to an empty table.

"Three of them." Nick blows across the liquid in the cup again, trying to cool 
  the liquid further. "Won't be too bad. I took professors that don't take off 
  points if you don't show for class. Attendance policies bite."

"They sure as hell do," Sally answers Nick quietly, then pauses to take a 
  breath before turning her head just enough to see Salem. Kicking out one of 
  the two remaining empty chairs in much the same way as she did for Nick, 
  Sally raises her voice enough for it to carry to his table. "You don't have 
  to sit alone, you know." Perhaps her voice isn't bubbling over with 
  invitation, but the offer is there.

Salem pauses, about to sit down, and turns toward Sally. Unobtrusively, a 
  couple of senior citizens get up and leave, murmuring to each other and 
  giving the Garou wary glances. "I don't want sympathy, Mustang Sally," he 
  says, coldly.

Nicodemus looks from Salem back to Mustang. Rather than interrupting, he 
  simply lets Sally deal with her other moody friend.

She gives the chair another kick, the sound of its metal legs scraping against 
  the ceramic tile surprisingly sharp in the suddenly quiet shop. Sally turns 
  her face back to her own table, saying simply as she lifts her mug to her 
  lips, "It's not sympathy."

Salem's lips tighten a bit, and then he moves to join Sally and her gothling 
  friend, taking the offered seat. "So you say." His eyes shift toward Nick, 
  looking him over.

Nicodemus purses his lips in a tight, forced, muted, gothicly-appropriate 
  smile at Salem. He lifts his cup of coffee and takes a small sip, though his 
  silence says volumes which the Garou probably easily comprehends.

[Nick's desc]
This under-twenty teen possesses a gaunt build and anemic-white flesh. A war 
  between light and dark takes place about him--and the darkness is winning. 
  Black dyed hair hangs to shoulder length in a stylishly unkempt manner. His 
  eyes resemble cat pupils.
The Darkling's nails are tipped with black polish. Around his neck hangs a 
  silver skull necklace with a red crystal inside. A second necklace bears a 
  simple silver crucifix. His ears are infested with assorted bits of metal.
Today's fashion theme is 'traditional gothic'. A black leather jacket covers 
  his torso. On its back, there's a skull mosaic composed from hundreds of 
  mirror shards. Beneath the jacket is a black mesh shirt worn over a white 
  T-shirt. The pants are an elaborate patchwork of form-fitting black PVC 
  combined with black pothole fishnet. A length of chromed chain about his 
  waist serves as a completely unneeded belt. Finishing the outfit is a black 
  pair of 18-hole boots.

With a casual wave of her finger, Sally indicates each in turn, "Nick, Salem. 
  Salem, Nick." Her hand remains on her cup, fingers loosly wrapped around it 
  for warmth.

Salem lifts his coffee cup a bit to the gothling and offers a small, tight 
  little smile. "A pleasure."

Nicodemus breaks his silence, and some of the prior tension about him gives 
  way--a little. "Cool name," he comments honestly. A customer steps into the 
  shop, blowing on his hands as he looks around, then departs back out the 
  door after a brief moment.

Facing the door as she is, Sally does not miss the customer's quick turn 
  around. In fact, the kinswoman seems to make sharp note of it. She lifts her 
  cup, not drinking from it just yet. She pointedly does not look at Salem.

"Thanks," says Salem, in clipped tones. He blows on the hot black liquid and 
  sips it, delicately.

Nicodemus shifts nervously in his chair, glances around the shop as if trying 
  to not look at or near the man sitting at the same table, and then reaches 
  into the depths of his jacket to retrieve a metal flask with a skull cap on 
  top. "Anyone else care for a hit?" Keeping the flask close to him so it 
  isn't blatantly obvious, he unscrews the container and adds a healthy shot 
  to his coffee.

Salem lifts an eyebrow, and then shrugs and pushes his cup slightly toward 
  Nick. "As long as you're offering..." He lets his voice trail off. Apart 
  from the aura of anger and feral promise of violence that lurks under his 
  flesh, he seems rather calm. At least, his voice remains even, and he 
  doesn't look like he's going to kill anyone in the next two minutes. Maybe 
  in a half hour, sure, but not the next two minutes.

Sally MacKay's answer is a smile and a, "Please." With the angle of the cop's 
  table from theirs, the chances are that she hasn't noticed they're bring 
  watched. She reaches to push her cup across the table to him, stretching 
  past Salem.

Nicodemus pours a measure for Salem first, then Sally, emptying the flask 
  entirely in the process. Upended over Sally's cup, he taps out the last 
  milliliter. "Now it really is good to the last drop." The comment might be 
  amusing if it didn't seem like the effort at humor was forced. The flask 
  disappears within his jacket.

Salem regards Nick for a moment, and then turns to Sally. "See?" His voice is 
  flat as he indicates Nick with a tilt of his head. "I told you. A curse."

Sally MacKay reaches back across for her cup, her lips flicking downwards at 
  his comment. Once she has it and she sits back up, she says in a tone that's 
  probably angrier than she intended it to be, "Well if you didn't fuckin' 
  tell people they were going to be running away from you, maybe they 
  wouldn't." She shoots Nick a look, "You going somewhere? Feel like running 
  out with your hands waving over your head?"

"Bullshit." Salem's voice rises sharply, anger sparking. "I don't have to 
  fucking _tell_ them. I mean, look!" He waves an arm, indicating the rest of 
  the donut shop, which by now has mysteriously emptied itself of almost all 
  of its customers.

Nicodemus, previously focused on his coffee cup, looks up at Salem's 
  mentioning of 'curse'. His gaze then moves away and towards Sally. He's 
  about to say something but keeps his mouth shut as the excitable Salem has 
  an outburst. He looks back at his coffee.

Sally MacKay doesn't look at the /whole/ rest of the donut shop, just the half 
  that enables her not to have to look at the angry Ahroun. Actually it's more 
  like she glares at it, then stares down angerly at the cup in her hand. 
  "And?" She throws the question at him without looking.

Salem tosses back a swallow of his alcohol-flavored coffee and swallows, 
  forcing the rage back, taking a few breaths to calm himself. "And nothing. 
  Forget it."

Nicodemus nervously pretends like nothing is happening, much like the way a 
  guest at another family's dinner table would ignore an unpleasant spat 
  between the hosts.

Sally MacKay's eyes lift towards his, anger almost covering the confusion, 
  distrust, and yeah, a touch of fear contained within them. " 'And nothing? 
  Forget it?'," she repeats back at him.

Salem swallows another mouthful of his special coffee. "Forget I mentioned 
  it." He changes subjects. "You're both students at the college?"

Sally does -not- look like she's about to go along with the quick subject 
  change. As his anger recedes, hers grows. With the exception of her tight 
  grip on the cup itself, her coffee goes ignored. She stares at Salem, 
  forehead furrowed and brows lowered, her mouth frowning.

Salem hisses air out through his teeth and turns on Sally, leaning forward 
  toward her. the anger's back, snapping forward with a cobra's speed. "What 
  the hell do you want me so say, Sally? 'Oh, sorry, I was just kidding, ha 
  ha, big joke'?"

Nicodemus waits for Sally to pick up the conversation with her friend. When 
  she fails to do so, he opens his mouth to speak and promptly closes it as 
  Salem and Sally continue their argument. Nick's gaze goes back to his coffee 
  and pretending like the pair isn't across the table from him.

The young blonde leans back at least as much as he leans forward, and almost 
  as quickly. She rips her eyes away from his, sending her angry look 
  elsewhere. "I want you to- I want-" She bats her hand at her coffee, almost 
  upending it instead of just causing some of it to slosh over the lip. "Oh 
  fuck you."

Salem tosses back a mouthful of his hot drink and sits back in his chair 
  again, staring at Sally with that same look of bitter desolation that Sally 
  saw on his face earlier today. "Oh, you don't mean that," he rasps, 
  bitingly. "Don't tease."

"I should probably give you two some privacy," Nicodemus says as he moves to 
  stand, leaving most of his coffee still in the cup and the chocolate covered 
  donut completely untouched. He looks like he wouldn't mind leaving the 
  store, but certainly doesn't look ready to throw his arms over his head and 
  run screaming.

Holding her anger around her like a shield, Sally's eyes go back to the Garou, 
  attempting to see if he purposefully misunderstood her words or not. Nick 
  gets a glare only a degree less than the ones she's been gracing Salem with, 
  and she nods before she goes back to pinpointing Salem with it. She looks 
  like she's daring him to say something about Nick leaving.

Salem's words were clearly a deliberate barb, born of anger and betrayed 
  pride. He watches Nick leave with a little grimace. "Tell me what the hell 
  you want from me, Sally, or tell me to get the hell out. But whichever you 
  pick, you better damned well mean it, because I'm getting royally sick of 
  this dancing back and forth."

Nicodemus parts without further fanfare, opening the shop's door and circling 
  around towards his car out front.

Sally MacKay's chin lifts, a tiny show of defiance in the face of his verbal 
  jab. "I want you to fuckin' tell me," emotions have lowered her voice, not 
  their setting. "I want to know what the hell you are and why you make people 
  run. I want to know," her tone adds what she does not give words to: she 
  needs to know.

Salem glances around the donut shop; except for the nervous lady behind the 
  counter, it's pretty much gone completely empty. Then he leans over, 
  lowering his voice, eyes burningly intent. "Fine. I'll tell you. But I 
  swear, Sally, that if you tell a single other living soul what I've told you 
  - if you tell _anyone_ that I told you, anyone at all - I swear that I will 
  hunt you down and kill you myself. Do you understand?"

Sally doesn't lean away as he draws closer to speak, though she doesn't move 
  nearer to catch his quiet words, either. Not until his threat does she 
  actually sit back in her seat, such a play of emotions across her expression 
  that the dash of added fear might almost be missed. Almost. She nods, a 
  single up and down movement of her head. "Tell me."

Salem takes another swallow of coffee, his hand shaking a bit with repressed 
  rage and a reluctance born of a lifetime. "I'm... a werewolf." There. He 
  said it. It's out. What's one more Litany law, more or less, right?

After he speaks Sally just sits there a moment, waiting for him to go on. The 
  corner of her mouth twitches upwards, and she raises her cup to sip at it as 
  if they were in the middle of a conversation about the weather. "A 
  werewolf?" she asks, and not surprisingly it doesn't sound like she totally 
  believes him.

Salem narrows his eyes slightly, gauging her reactiong and not entirely 
  pleased with it. "Yes," he says, shortly. "And I've probably just put by 
  neck into the hangman's noose just for telling you. And I didn't _have_ to 
  tell you. Clear?"

Sally MacKay's lips twitch again, and this time she loses the fight to keep 
  from smiling. After another drink, she rises and takes a long, slow 
  stretches, her arms straight out from her. Grabbing her coat from the back 
  of her chair, she puts it on as she steps around him. "Come on."

Salem pushes his chair out with a harsh scraping sound and rises, his motions 
  tight, nerves coiled, every muscle on edge as he moves to follow the blonde.

[Scene shift to an alley near the donut shop...]

Sally MacKay leads him out amd makes a left, then turns into the first alley 
  they come to. She steps carefully over bits of trash and around puddles of 
  ... liquids, then stops once they reach the back of it. It's dim in the 
  deepening shadows of the evening, but there's still enough light for them to 
  see each other. "Show me," she says simply, her hands at her side and a 
  strangly amused look on her face.

Salem's eyes search her face, mouth set into a frown as he studies her. "What 
  makes you think I can change forms at will, hm?" He takes a step closer, 
  with the smooth motions of a wary, dangerous animal.

Sally MacKay's expression slips, then she catches it and forces it back into 
  place. The heel of one foot raises, though she doesn't actually start her 
  step back yet. "Lucky guess," she says, not even trying to make it sound 
  like that's true.

Salem snarls. "Bullshit." Faster than the eye can follow, almost, the tall 
  Garou has grabbed the human woman by the shoulder, shoving her up roughly 
  against the wall and pinning her there, his anger-distorted face thrust 
  right up to hers. "How much do you know?"

Sally MacKay's lips draw back as she's grabbed, but unlike his snarl, hers is 
  a clear expression of fear. Either that emotion or just the suddeness of his 
  actions keeps her from struggling at first. She turns her face away from 
  his, totally unaware that the action flashes throat in a display not 
  dissimilar to the one her shifting cousins use. "I know," the words are 
  forced out in a fear-tight voice.

Salem's breath is hot against her skin, panting with the struggle to keep the 
  beast within at bay. His grip tightens, holding the young woman against the 
  filthy alley wall. "Have you been playing me for a fool all this time?" Rage 
  whirls behind his dark eyes, which seem to flash yellow in the 
  semi-darkness, catching and reflecting the light of nearby neon. "What are 
  you? _Who_ are you? Who told you about us?" The questions snap out at her, 
  one after another like snarling dogs.

She flinches away from each little movement of his: his sharp breath, the 
  tightening of his hands, then each question in turn, but the wall behind her 
  is unforgiving and there's nowhere for Sally to go. Her eyes close tightly 
  as she exclaims, "I didn't know what you were!" She jerks, trying to free 
  herself of his hands' grips. "And I saw, so they told me." She stops 
  speaking as if finished, then she quickly adds, "I'm Kin!"

Salem abruptly lets Sally go, almost violently; he'd shove her away if not for 
  the wall. Swearing in virilent Serbian, the Garou turns, taking a half-step 
  away from the kinswoman and slamming his fist into the side of a dumpster - 
  once, twice, three times, his face twisted with unthinking, unreasoning 
  rage, just steps away from frenzy. At the third strike, there's a sickening 
  *crunch*, and the rusted metal dents. But afterwords, Salem is still, 
  leaning against the dumpster and breathing raggedly, his knuckles covered 
  with blood, probably broken.

Without a single thought of saving the poor, innocent dumpster, Sally stumbles 
  back, away from the seething Garou. And she doesn't stop with just a foot or 
  two. Backing, her widened eyes never leaving him, she half-walks, 
  half-stumbles towards the street. She's almost back within its light when he 
  stops. So does she. Her own breath coming fast now she's tensed, ready to 
  run. She watches him.

"I told you it was a curse." Salem's voice is hoarse and ragged, his back to 
  the kinswoman. She could run easily, escape and vanish into the street 
  before he can turn around and reach the end of the alley. "And I told you 
  that I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it."

"I didn't know," Sally's words don't exactly sound like an apology, more like 
  an explanation. She lets the quiet draw out, perhaps long enough to make him 
  think that she left. Then: "You okay?"

Salem turns around slightly, enough so that Sally can see his broken, 
  blood-covered hand. His face is tight with pain. "In a moment." He lowers 
  his head, concentrating, and slowly the hand transforms - just the hand. It 
  grows larger, the forearm with it, and somehow, the sleeve of the duster 
  still fits. The nails thicken, almost like claws, and coarse black hair 
  appears on the knuckles and the back of the hand. Salem's breathing evens, a 
  steady in and out as the transformed hand heals itself, the bones 
  re-knitting and the breaks in the skin closing up.

It's not the broken and bloody hand that turns Sally's face away, it's the 
  shifting of it. At first she tries just watching his face, but that's not 
  enough and she looks off to the side, tension running high again as she 
  waits for some signal that he's done.

Salem releases his concentration, and the hand reverts back to normal, the 
  skin bloodied but whole. He flexes his fingers, opening and closing them, 
  and then looks over at Salem, his dark features obscured by shadow. 
  "Obviously," he says quietly, "they didn't tell you everything."

Sally shrugs a little, more of just a tightening and releasing of her 
  shoulders than anything else. She doesn't disagree. Eying the hand which, 
  barring the blood, now looks normal again, she watches it warily as if it 
  were now somehow more dangerous than the rest of him. Then she drags her 
  eyes back up to his face, doing nothing to decrease the physical distance 
  between them.

Salem, for his part, doesn't do anything to decrease that distance either, 
  though he does pull a rumpled handkerchief from his coat pocket and use it 
  to wipe the blood from the back of his hand. "You'll find that they _won't_ 
  tell you everything," he says in an even tone. "They'll tell you the good 
  things, the nice things, the noble things. They won't tell you about the 
  dishonor, the mistakes, the dirty laundry." He tilts his head slightly. "I 
  can tell you those things, if you want. If you can promise never to let on 
  where your information came from."

Even with the distance and the poor lighting, the spark of interest in Sally's 
  eyes could be seen. She nods, "Everything sounded too good: 'Save the 
  world', 'Stop pollution', 'Keep the streets safe', they never said anything 
  /else/." Though the wariness, the tension, the distrust does not leave her 
  expression, Sally takes a single step towards him.

Salem continues to lean against the dumpster, letting the kinswoman approach 
  on her own terms. He nods once. "Nothing's ever that perfect, no." He lifts 
  his head a bit, looks consideringly at her. "Do you swear, then, to keep 
  everything I tell you a secret? Even from the others... like me? My might 
  kill me, if they knew." A cynical smirk curves one side of his mouth 
  upwards. "My life's shit, but I don't want to die just yet."

His words draw Sally back towards him, slowly, oh yes, and still with that 
  same lack of trust, but she keeps moving. "I won't say anything," she agrees 
  as she nears the half-way point between them, stopping just before reaching 
  it. Her blonde eyebrows raise as a question occurs to her, "Why?" She 
  gestures at him with her chin, "Why tell me if they'd kill you for it?"

Salem tilts his head, as if considering the question within himself. Finally, 
  he shrugs. "Because I promised I would, and because..." He pauses, scowling 
  a bit. "Maybe honor still means something." Judging by the sardonic acidity 
  of his tone in those last few words, he doesn't quite believe that of 
  himself. "Maybe it's because I'm an outsider, and I can see things more... 
  clearly... than they can. Maybe I just like breaking rules."

It's probably that last point that wins Sally over, or at least it draws an 
  amused sound from her. "Yeah, okay, cool. I won't tell anyone." She tosses 
  her hair back, and with that simple gesture, the tension seems gone from her 
  stance and expression. She doesn't put voice to her question, but she does 
  take a glance at the newly-healed hand before she asks, "Wanna go get a 
  drink or something?"

Salem straightens slowly, running fingers through his hair to push it away 
  from his face. The rage has subsided now, at least taking a background role, 
  visible but not as prominant. "Sounds like a plan."

"Cool," the kinswoman repeats, waiting for him to join her before heading out 
  of the alley.