Lingua Franca

[Supercape]

He's got a point. I'm no angel. And anyway, angels scare me as much as demons. They should all just stay away...

 

Well, why not tell him that? I guess only way to fight lies is with truth...

 

"I sure never pretended to be no angel, mister. And truth is, they scare me just as much as demons. I don't believe in no God, and I don't believe in no Satan. Only thing I believe is that we got ourselves and we got some assholes who want a piece of us and should leave us the hell alone..." 

 

"I might have got you wrong John, but I may just have got you right. My guess is, I probably got you somewhere in between. Now there is no reason to be scared of me. Least, not unless you did something real bad. I did may share of stealing and stuff when I was a kid. Jumped from one foster home to another, at least till I was halfway settled. How d'ya think I ended up in this mess?" she asked. 

 

"So listen, come on down. I'd buy you a drink if you weren't cold sober. And you can tell me about what you saw. My name is Carmen Cantos. But some, when I'm burning up, they call me Pitch...and I'd rather you kept that between you and me..."

[TheAbsurdist]

"You, me and the flames of hell, huh?  Ah see the hounds girl, they come sniffin' everytime ah give a handshake to the man.  Fetch done marked his territory with me years ago... so why don't we just part company now?  Ya'll can't unsee thinss, can't undo them, and ah don't trust ya'll as far as ya'll can run."  He edged away, still wary, but then he had no reason to trust her, no reason to want to trust her.

 

Roiling in her gut Tazel didn't say anything, perhaps sensing she would rebuke him, though his desires were known.  A flicker in the back of her throat, wanting, waiting to lash out.

[Supercape]

"John, you don't need to trust me. But if what you seen comes barkin' at your door, you know who to call, you hear?" she said, one step away at shouting at him. 

 

"I don't want to lose you" she said, in pure frustration. "I've lost other's, and I swore no more, y'hear!" she shouted, this time. Angry with both John and herself, and turned, walking away and kicking a trash can over in pure anger. 

 

She stormed out, horrified that she had just screwed up the interview and screwed up the life of John Perdition. She tormed back into the bar and ignored the intrigued looks. 

 

"Gimme a shot. Hell, no. Gimme a bottle" she demanded, and stormed out, a bottle of whisky in her hand. She clambered up onto her bike and looked at the alleyway where John was. Was he still there?

 

She leaned over the bike, so nobody could see, and, with the usual nausea, vomiited out Tazel into the sidewalk. 

 

For once, she spoke to him with her mouth,

 

"Tazel, do me a favour and stalk him. Don't let him see you. Don't hurt him, don't speak to him. Just let me know where he goes to. keep him safe, d'y hear...." she said, leaning over the motorcycle and slowly straightening up. 

[TheAbsurdist]

As luck would have it, no.  John Perdition had opted to not remain near the demonically tainted Carmen.

 

Eagerly, almost too much so, did Tazel erupted from her mouth after she spat him out.  Normally he found the process ignominious, but he endured it this time.  Very well mistress, he crackled.  And then he moved skipping away like a will'o'wisp, a puddling sizzling under impact from him and he gave chase.

 

A few moments after that happened came a voice behind her.  "Helluva thing, dollface."

[Supercape]

Carmen spun round, in an angry mood, the spirit of punk surging inside her. 

 

"I'll give you dollface, buster" she said, starting to reach for the knuckleduster in her pocket. 

 

She stopped, a little startled by the man. He was out of time. Fifty years or so she guessed - sleek suit and hair, sunglasses, thin red tie. Would explain the antiquated language too. But what was he doing outside a bar in Freedom City? Guy just step though a time warp or something? or took a wrong turn to a fancy dress party?

 

"Yeah, sure is a helluva thing. You sneaking up on me like that, I mean. What gives? What's you story? Or you aiming to make one?" she asked, still simmering but curious all the same. 

[TheAbsurdist]

"Skittish."  A slow grin on his face as he took a deep inhale, and slowly let the smoke roll out, before blowing a lazy ring of smoke as he watched her.  "You could finish with those knuckles, and you could punch me.  I understand that that would be very..." Clenching his lips around the cigarette, he lifted his hands to make air-quotes with his fingers, "...empowering."  Then he reached back and grabbed the cigarette and tapped off some ash.

 

There was a peculiar smell in the air, it was hard to place, a hint of something resinous on the breeze, even over the sulphurous scotch she was used to in her nostrils.  "Or, as I like to say, chock full of piss and vinegar.  Though, I don't like that, I would prefer something a bit more incongruous.  Sweets.  That's better.  I am just enjoying the show, and standing here wondering if you are going to drink that bottle all by your lonesome."  

Edited October 28, 2013 by TheAbsurdist

[Supercape]

"No, I thought I would share it with my girlfriend" said Carmen, lying through her teeth and giving the man some serious negative vibes. 

 

She took her hand away from her pocket. How the hell did he know what was in there? Did he have X-Ray Vision or something? Well, this was Freedom City, after all. For all she knew those sunglasses really where x-ray spectacles. 

 

Instead, she gripped the Cantos Cane and drummed her fingers on the brass goats head, and put her other hand on the handle of  her bike. 

 

"I ain't got any candy, Mister. Bad for your teeth, just like a punch in the face. So how about you introduce yourself? Or do I just call you Mr. Voyeur?" she asked, levelling her speech. Her heart was still pounding over her failure with John, and her head was still spinning over the whole damned mystery. She felt like she was sinking...

 

Tazel, any sign of John? and don't lie, just give it to me....look for him!!!

[TheAbsurdist]

"Oh, I know Sweets.  But then, I like crawling under people's skin a little bit."  Letting out a lazy ring of smoke drift over of his mouth, before releasing another stream of smoke in the dead center it.  "Call me Jerome.  Good as any, isn't it, Sweets?"  Said rather offhandedly.  Stepping away from the wall, he didn't really move any closer to her.  "The issue is that you are going to be driving that, obviously distracted, and probably drunk."

 

Under her senses he was shadowed, it was inconclusive.  "Could hurt a lot of other people.  Unintended consequences.  Following little white rabbits.  Hm?"

 

 

Seeking... he has a headstart.

[Supercape]

Damn, I'm not drunk...I'm just pissed!

 

Still he had a point. She had had a few. Maybe she was over the limit, maybe she was under. But she was wobbling around the legal limit. She had planned to drive home and finish off the bottle, kill the pain down her leg and the pain her heart and pass out for the night, fed up with the day and oblivious for the night. 

 

But this guy was right. Which just made her madder. 

 

"So something tell's me you walked into my life just to crawl under my skin and toast my soul a little more, I am right?" she goaded, gritting her teeth a little harder. 

 

"Well, Jerome Voyeur, you got a good look today, didn't you? What did you make of our mutual friend John? what is his story? innocent as he sounds?" she asked, her skin crawling away and telling her to fire up the engine and make a dash for it. She really didn't like Jerome. But then, she really didn't like being in the dark either. 

[TheAbsurdist]

"I wont stop you from getting on that motorbike, toots.  It is your choice.  My opinion is you need to slow down some."  Another lazy drag as he watched her behind those glasses, or something like that.  The dark glass made it hard to tell if that was the case.  "He isn't my friend.  And at this point I would guess he isn't yours."  Shaking his head and blowing another smoke ring as he turned his head a bit, to watch where she had been just a few minutes ago.

 

"He isn't innocent, in the grand scheme, his soul isn't owned, it does have markers on it.  But then, he told you that didn't he?  But you were acting on instinct, and whatever flame you retched up."  Shaking his head a little bit. and shrugged then.  "So I don't know what to tell you that you will listen to.  You seem stubborn, I can appreciate that."

[Supercape]

"Nobody owns the soul. That's what makes it a soul" said Carmen defiantly. No matter what any tome or book might say, it was the creed she lived by. Shackles, chains, and deals be damned. 

 

"And I ain't met anybody whose innocent yet, either" she added, revving up the engine. He was a smooth customer, this Jerome. She gave him that. Another day, she might have bandied a few more word with him. A few, but not many. He was all silver tongue and insinuation. No matter what, she had the heart of a power chord racked up to eleven and Johnny Rotten screaming defiance down the microphone. Screw the man. 

 

"I can listen real good, mister. Its believing that's the trick isn't it? You strike me as the kind of guy who is real good at saying one thing when the truth is a whole different hill of beans. Do me the courtesy of not denying it, huh?" she said, giving him an engine rev and a shrug. 

 

"I might believe you better if I knew what your game was. But as it is, you won't even give me a lie about that, much less the truth" she explained. "So as it stands, when somebody comes up to me babbling about souls being marked and owned, my experience is to treat those words as twisted..."

[TheAbsurdist]

He cracked a smile as he dropped the cigarette, and then stepped onto it, grinding it under his heel before he closed the distance a little.  "Your belief is not required, little Carmen Cantos.  Doesn't make something less true, or that other people stop believing in it.  If you want to talk about redemption... that is different.  Entirely."  He pulled the handkerchief out of his breast pocket, and offered it to her.  "Got a little brimstone on your cheek.  Must be from your friend."

 

And he stepped back, leaving the bit of cloth with her.  "I wont force anything else.  But tell Tazel, that Meremoth says hello."  And that Name was spoke, it was... Spoken in layers.  A choir of human and inhuman voices and sounds raged against her ears and senses.  It was a storm of sound, of concepts, and she realized he smelled of myrrh, and she wouldn't know how.

 

...Then Tazel screamed, as inhuman as the Name spoke by 'Jerome.'  Nononono!  Not Him!  Never!  Must get... Arrrgha!  And then came a panicked gout of flame at a most inopportune time in Tazel's hunting of John.

 

"Hm, touchy."  And he kept backpedaling from her, until the sodium lamp overhead popped audibly, and Jerome stepped back into the shadows, and a single smoke-gray feather fluttered out from there as he seemingly vanished.  It cartwheeled through the air, before landing on her filler cap, of her motorcycle.  Possibly laden with metaphor.

Edited October 29, 2013 by TheAbsurdist

[Supercape]

Feeling Talkative Tazel?

 

She picked up the feather and twirled it in her fingers. Tazel was bound to obey her every command. 

 

Nearly every command, that was. Some knowledge was forbidden, or closed, or had whatever hocus pocus law applied to it. No matter how strong her father had applied his sorcery to the little demon to bind it to the Cantos line, and its strength was very strong indeed, she could not force every secret out of him..of it. Oh, she could command it to tell her what it had seen, or heard, or what had happened. But not the deep mysteries of its history. 

 

Mores the pity. 

 

Of course, Tazel could tell her. But it could, on these matters, also lie. And she kinda figured Tazel liked lying. 

 

She reached below her and opened up the secret compartment Axel had installed in the bike, carrying the Cantos diaries and a handy shotgun. Never hurt to be prepared, he had said. She placed the feather in the compartment and shut it. 

 

Damn it, I gotta find John and work out what the Hell is happening...

 

Tazel, what news? and who the hell is Meremoth?

[TheAbsurdist]

... He is in a hotel room mistress.

 

Tazel was pointedly not answering the question.  At least at first.  Then the compulsion hit, and whatever quake of fear was in his fire, couldn't exceed the compulsion.  Meremoth is a fallen angel mistress.  Of bitterness and myrrh.  It was a frankness that was a bit disconcerting.  As he was never apt to be that forward with her.  We should just walk away, this doesn't concern us.

[Supercape]

Fallen Angels? Fallen from where, I wonder?

 

Carmen didn't concern herself with the other side. She wasn't even sure how many sides there where. As far as she was concerned, she had enough on her plate with demons. She wasn't what you might call a religious person. If there was a God, and she wasn't decided on the matter, she had come to the conclusion that he worked in mighty mysterious ways. 

 

Too late to walk away, Tazel. And that's not my style, anyhow. I've been diving in my whole life. And I'm a reporter, remember?

 

She fired up her motorcycle and sped off. She was near the limit, she knew. That was reckless of her. But right now, she needed to find John, and ask him who Meremoth was, and why he was interested in an ex con singer...

[TheAbsurdist]

It isn't too late to walk away.  You cannot unopen a door mistress.  The history of humans is littered with the bones of pigheaded humans found painful truths.

 

There was that note of... something, anxiousness perhaps, it was hard to tell, as all she had to go on was the apparent mood of fire.  When she arrived it was a simple, even normal seeming hotel.  Nothing fancy, but it was a good place to stop over the night without stepping over drunks, junkies or worse.  Tazel waited for her, behind the hotel, near the dumpster.  The irony wouldn't be lost on Carmen.

[Supercape]

Carmen parked the Motorcycle and shuffled off it cane in hand. She felt like she had blown the whole evening - been too reckless, too paranoid, and too brash. But then, that was her, and that was rock n' roll. Perhaps she was being too hard on herself. 

 

Whatever the case may be, she wasn't going to write of John yet - there obviously something going on - all she had to do was dig. That was what a reporter was meant to do, right? right?

 

Truth was, she got by on reporting by being a wild child rock n roll chick, knowing all her music, and street cred. She wasn't really an investigative reporter. Still, no time like the present, huh? she told herself. 

 

First things first then - lets tone down the fire and Brimstone for the evening, Tazel. That blew it today, lets try subtle for the evening. Strictly human...

 

...if I can get away with that. 

 

With her mouth open and a mental command she swallowed the flame of Tazel and let him settle inside her. Tonight, she would try and play it as "human" as possible. 

 

No chains of metal, no burning spears or breathing fire. 

 

She fingered the knuckleduster in her jacket. Well, that was just backup obviously. 

 

She walked into the Hotel, cane clicking. 

 

"Hey, got a room?" she asked, giving the receptionist her best smile. 

 

"I just saw John Perdition walk in here! I am a real fan! I would kill for his autograph!" she said, conspiratorally. 

[TheAbsurdist]

There was reluctance in her servitor, certainly Tazel couldn't resist the compulsion back into her gut. And despite the burn, and perhaps a wish for some antacid, there was nary a peep from the demon.

Behind the counter of the averagely appointed hotel was the late night desk guy. And night desk guy gawked at her, as she threw on the charm, heavy. Night desk guy had the lank, dyed hair of a metalhead trying to look professional, so with her best smile, and a little bit of being overwhelmed by her appearance, and it wasn't hard for him to give her the room number and a key, assuming she was a groupie of some sort.

[Supercape]

Carmen walked up the stairs, heart beating fast. 

 

This is Rock n Roll...seedy hotel, groupie, undercover reporter...

 

She could get used to this. 

 

She opened the door to her room, not caring about its mediocre dressing and standards. It saved on cash, anyway - which, whilst not in short supply  was a bit hit and miss. 

 

She took off her Jacket and threw it on a beaten chair. He cropped top showed off more of that damned tattoo down her spine, protection and ward. 

 

The room she had chosen was next door to John's. She picked up a slightly dirty glass from the washroom and placed it on the wall, to see if she could hear anything...

[TheAbsurdist]

There was nothing to be heard through the wall.  The only sound was her own breathing.  Even Tazel was quiet.

 

Until the television burst to life, and the air filled with the static-y sound of white noise.  Before the bombast of a Southern Preacher replaced that sound.  "-FEAR NOT the army of WOLVES led by the sheep, FEAR the army of SHEEP LED by the WOLVES!"

 

And then it faded back out to that static, that distant hissing susurrus.

[Supercape]

Carmen strained to hear anything, but nothing was all she could hear. 

 

She nearly jumped out of her skin when the Television burst to life. She felt like her heart was going to burst out of her chest or explode. A film of sweat iced her body almost instantly, in a sickening drench, and for a moment she felt she was going to lose the real (as opposed to infernally unreal) contents of her stomach. 

 

She sank to the floor, leaning against it, clutching her chest. 

 

It's not real, it's not real. they can't touch me. Not whilst that damned tattoo is there...There was some comfort in that. No demon could burn her with that on her. Still, they could scare her real good it seemed. Jump her. 

 

She was rattled and angry. 

 

Screw this. I'm in a hotel, I'm rock and roll, and I'm angry...

 

She was no muscle woman, but she was strong, and in shape, and, angry, it was no problem to tear the offending TV out of the wall socket, and throw it out of the window. 

 

"Hell yeah baby! Rock 'n Roll!" she shouted defiantly, through her very real fear.

[TheAbsurdist]

And when her eyes fell on the television, there was nothing on it, the sound gone.  Leaving her alone in the room, until she was ripping the television out of the wall, and throwing it through window and sending it careening to the sidewalk, and fracturing it into numerous little pieces.  As they scattered, a raspy, weedy voice sang solo in the background...

 

"God forgive him... 'cause he... doesn't see
He's no less a... prisoner 'cause... he holds a key
And God forbid... he turn his... back on me"

 

From her perch she could see the shards of glass on the ground, and the pieces of the screen for the television, as the static appeared on them.

 

"For every wall... you build around... your fear
A thousand... darker things... are born in here
And they're fed... on contempt for all... that you hold dear"

 

The lights went out in her hotel room.  Sharply.  The bulbs holding that residual glow after power leaves them, the wires still hot and still.

 

"The truth is... it doesn't matter... what you do
'Til you gaze in... that mirror with an... eye that's true

And admit... that what scares you... is the me in you..."

 

And then there was a knock on the door.

[Supercape]

Scooby Doo Spooky!

 

She couldn't hold back a slightly hysterical laugh. She was getting panicked now. This was like a horror movie. Something, or somebody, was messing with her head. She crouched down and clamped her hands to her head. 

 

Get a grip! Focus!

 

The only thing to fear is fear itself!

 

She would grab any cliche she could right now. 

 

She wasn't even halfway composed, but she stood up and walked to the door. 

 

"Be right there..." he said, taking a deep breath in and breath out. 

 

Be bold. Show them who is boss! she screamed at herself. They weren't going to kick her around. 

 

She flung open the door. Fast. 

[TheAbsurdist]

There was an undignified shriek as the metal front desk dude leaped back, holding his arms up above his face, and turned from her, terrified of the pissed of Carmen Canto.  "Ahhh!"  There was a moment, and he lifted his head to look at her.

 

A rumble, or flicker of flame went through her belly.  Ah, you monkeys and your bravery.  Tazel was laughing... at her, or the guy,  It was hard to say sometimes with him.

 

"Y-you need to g-go!  I c-called the cops!"  OF course he would have to file a report, she was hot, but scary too, and he didn't want to lose his job, because some crazy girl, probably on drugs, ripped a t.v. off a wall.

[Supercape]

Oh boy this is just getting better and better...

 

One thing for sure, this was not just some regular country singer with a sad story. That could be crossed off the menu. Unless she finally had cracked in the head. 

 

Maybe that wasn't totally impossible. But until then, she was gonna act like talking TVs and grey feathers meant something was afoot. 

 

"Call the damn cops then" she replied. She wasn't in the mood to argue. 

 

"Meantime, I'm telling you, there is some seriously scooby doo spook going on down here. I'm checking out, and you best call the ghostbusters kid. Or Nick CImitiere. Because unless your cops are packing silver bullets, your hotel is haunted. Why you think I chucked that TV down the hall? You best go check it out, kid, because it was freaking out on me even when it was unplugged!"

 

"Go! You wanna get slimed!" she shouted back at him.