Lingua Franca

[TheAbsurdist]

Silver doesn't work.  You know that.  If you want those people to die because you are annoyed Mistress, just need to let me out again...  Either way we should leave.

 

As all of this was happening nothing to be heard coming from John's room, nary a peep or any sort of reaction to the disturbance.  Which in and of itself was telling, but as agitated as Carmen was she would be filling the gaps, as she had been all night.  Not that Tazel hadn't pointed it out to her.  But he was a liar right?  So he couldn't be trusted...  Except to be a good liar, you had to speak mostly the truth, you had to be believable...

 

The front desk guy's back was against the wall, his eyes on her, though it was more like a scared and cornered animal, than anything challenging.  And in the middle of her rant, which now sounded like a drug fuel rage, he turned tail and just booked it, her slimed joke chasing after him in the hallway.

[Supercape]

A liar has to tell the truth sometimes, or his falsehoods will be known...

 

It was basic poker, really. And Tazel was no fool. She had no idea how long the demon had been around, but he was certainly good at his game. 

 

And just why should we leave? she asked the bound demon. I'm not leaving if anybody is going to die...I'm here to protect people...

 

She held her head in her hands, forcing herself to think. The cops were on their way, presumably to arrest her (thankfully on a pretty trivial charge of criminal damage, she imagined), and possibly into danger. Meanwhile, things were getting spookier and spookier around the mysterious John Perdition. Enough for her to know that something was up, but not what. 

 

She felt her heart racing and panic on her throat. Things were spinning out of control. She did her best to get a grip of herself. Her best wasn't very good. 

 

But damn it, it will have to do!

 

She couldn't solve this as Carmen Cantos, that much was clear. She needed to feel the full power once more. 

 

"Fire me up!" she said, aloud now, and in a moment her body once more spewed smoke and wisps of flame, her clothes seared leather and studs, and her eyes glowed a menacing azure. 

 

With some difficulty, she hauled herself out of the window. She felt the unnatural strength in her limbs give her power, but her limp slowed her down. She wouldn't be steady...but...

 

She was going to take a look through John's window, and confront him directly. If she couldn't appeal to him as Carmen Cantos, then she would appeal to him as Pitch. 

[TheAbsurdist]

Why should you stay?  My motivation for wanting to go is clear: I don't care about this John, even if your turmoil and guilt is delicious.  But yours... yours for staying is... hazy.  You think you are saving him, but how certain are you Carmen?  How much are your desires, and how much is projection?  Or is it...?  Tell me, Carmen... Tell me, were you this belligerent before you held my leash?  Or do you now see the appeal of the position you are in?

 

There was a crackle of flame, as it consumed her, and changed her to Pitch.

 

You don't really need to answer me... because, of course, Pride has always been one of our favorites.  Tastes like... victory.

 

Said as she made her way to the broken window, the scattered reminder of how this night had turned out was cast all over the grass and concrete underneath the ledge she was going to shuffle across to get to John's window.

[Supercape]

Pitch edged towards John's window. 

 

This was, she realised, ridiculous.

 

How had this day..this night...become so damn messed up, so damned fast? she was just trying to save John's life. Or more than his life. But what if Tazel was right? what was pushing her so far, so fast? she was like a dog with a rag in its mouth, growling and useless, but refusing to give up its prize. 

 

She had no idea what was going on, she had no idea what she was doing. What was she doing, clambering around the outside of a hotel, smoking away, and what was she going to do? she hadn't thought any of this through - she had reacted with her gut, prodded on by her own rage, guilt, and fear. 

 

She was a damn fool, is what she was...

 

The last point was drummed home when her dead foot, immobilised by her brace, slipped on the ledge. For all her strength, what she knew in her heart would happen, happened. 

 

She tumbled to the ground, leaving a trail of smoke, and hitting the dumpster below, hard, rolling off and landing face down in the dirt of the alley. 

 

"$%£!" she swore, pounding the street with her fist. She felt a tear swim down her cheek, surviving the smoke around her body against all the odds. 

[TheAbsurdist]

As she slipped, she was able to catch site of John, slumped in a chair several bottles around him.  And then she was falling...

 

Have you ever noticed that in moments like these, time slows down?

 

Of course it was the perception of time, and then she hit dumpster, before pitching over the edge and flopping to the hard, abrasive ground.

 

Or is that just me?

 

Her vision dimmed and she would be rattled from the fall.  In a moment, she'd see a backlit form in John's window for a moment, before movements of her eyelids.  And then it was gone.

[Supercape]

What's he up to...What is he up to...

 

Damn it, be my eyes....

 

She lay there still, defeated and broken, dirty in the gutter. But whilst her frustration and humiliation was real, she felt some determination rejuvinate her. Still lying down, she summoned forth Tazel from her mouth, blowing him out in a pyrotechnic display of fire. 

 

"You can soar. So just go up there, and see what's happening. Nothing else....!" she commanded of the fiery form in front of her, a living wisp of ember and flame, with two red eyes burning deeper and harder than the rest of the light. 

 

SIghing, she crawled to the dumpster and hauled herself up. 

 

The Cantos Cane...she cursed. She had left it in her hotel room. She could walk fine without it, but it was handy in other ways. She could not very well climb across the hotel with it in one hand. Although, she added to herself, she could not very well climb anyway. 

 

What do you see! she hissed at Tazel in her mind. 

[TheAbsurdist]

If flames could be sullen, Tazel would be at this moment.  Waste of my eternity...

 

He (as much as demon composed of flame had a gender) rose, ignoring, or at least not commenting on her bossing him around.  He didn't need to, beyond being recalcitrant, and taking his time to arrive at the window.  There is nothing here, he is drunk at the table, Mistress.  Showing her that image, and there was a touch of annoyance.  He turned his attention back to her and started to move before...

 

"Flauros, vos ego appello."

 

And Tazel turned in time to see a standing John Perdition, at the window, a hand up and pressed to the glass.  The wisp of flame burst forth in a hellish conflagration, leaving the demon to scream in pain and fear. 

[Supercape]

What the?

 

Tazel?

 

Carmen couldn't recognise the language. Latin? It smelled pretty sorcerous to her. Tazel's writhing scream was not natural either, at least, not natural for Tazel. She doubted the little imp would go that far to fool her. Although nothing was impossible when demon's were concerned. 

 

"Blast this, what in damnation is going on?" she yelled up to both John and Tazel. 

 

Even without Tazel firing up her flesh, she could summon the black magic of the infernal forge, the realm of endless fire, smoke and metal, and bring it forth. But she was three floors down, in the back of an alley...

[TheAbsurdist]

He stepped through the window then, and out onto the air then, standing there in the air for a moment, as he looked down at her.  "Ya'll can't just f***in' leave me alone, can't ya?  Fine dollface, ya'll and ya'll servitor wanna fight?  Let's do this, but ah ain't givin' in easy, ah ain't letting yew and yer lackey take me to ya'lls masters in hell!"  And then he swung a hand at Tazel, attempt to bat the little flickering flame, as he snarled.  His words sounding like he believed she was trying to twist him to the dark side.  Before he started to scuttle up side of the building in an unnatural fashion.

 

 

 

Mistress!  He is a conjurer!  The flame evading the attack, and then darting straight for her.

Edited November 14, 2013 by TheAbsurdist

[Supercape]

Carmen swung forth both arms, and in pure frustration, the power of the infernal forge flew though her bones and muscles, and into whip like chains that swung in mighty arcs into the wall. 

 

With a double crunch, they slammed into the masonry, and spikes and curves held them there. 

 

Concentrate...

 

She hadn't done this before. Her arm's ached with the effort, as she pulled forth, the chains coiling up and pulling her with them. As she raised herself after the mysterious John, she opened her mouth to swallow Tazel once again. 

 

Fire me up!

 

And once again, the smoke and wisps of flame engulfed her body, and she was Pitch. 

[Supercape]

The chains dug into the side of the hotel, and she used the two whips, thrown and coiling, to haul herself up beside John. 

 

"Normal singers don't scrabble up walls like some kind of man-spider!" she said to him. 

 

"I'm not the one taking you to hell, John. Looks like you are driving yourself that way all by yourself. Only I ain't gonna let ya!" she shouted, feeling the anger boil up inside of her, overwhelming her. 

 

He is not slipping away this time!!!! I'm not letting him!!!!

 

The fire and smoke burned that bit brighter and darker with her rage, and her teeth clenched, as her blood filled with rage. She could have slammed him, hard, with her furious strength, but she mustered enough self control to restrain that violent impulse. Instead, she reached around him to bear hug him...

[TheAbsurdist]

"Normal reporters don' spit out a servitor devil either, girl!  Glass houses!"

 

He struggled against her grasp.  Against someone without her strength he would likely have been able to get away, it was clear he was a scrapper, but that was decidedly different than what she had.  Still, John was still filled with fight, and breath, and spit, and he wasn't going to give in any time soon.

 

"Ya'll remind me of mah parole officers, maybe ah only called on it 'cause ya'll chased me?  Wolf comes 'round, girl, and a rabbit runs!"  It was then that she got a good look at him, and she'd see that he was covered in tattoos all over his body.  They were hidden, normally, under his long sleeved shirt, but here and now with him just wearing a tank top, and ink was splattered all over his flesh, an admixture of prison tattoos and things that were fall more occult.

 

"So how about ya'll just f*** off, and go back to whatever goat-legged-serpent-headed-a****** ya'll serve and leave me alone, darlin'!"  He was talking filled with venom, it was clear he didn't believe her intentions in the slightest, or he was as villainous as she believed...

 

Mistress he invoked the name of the Flauros, a Great Duke of Hell... bind his mouth!  If he can do that... then he is truly dangerous!  Stop him!  Stop him now mistress!  If you care about the other whining, naked monkeys then you need to still his tongue before he hurts others!

[Supercape]

Summoner?

 

Invoker?

 

Flauros, the Grand Duke of Hell?

 

Pitch didn't trust Tazel, or any demon, for that matter, further than she could throw them. And as Tazel was a floating wisp of flame, she couldn't even pick him up let alone throw him. 

 

Still if there was even the remotest possibility that John could bring forth a Grand 'ol duke of Hell...well, even she would struggle to contain such a power. And the collateral damage...

 

Her mind wheeled with the danger and the twists and turns. But she didn't have time to weigh up the decision. She just had a gut feeling she was being played. But she had to dance to the tune. 

 

"Sorry, John. I reckon we are being played for fools today. But I can't risk you summoning up something that even I can't control" she explained, sorrow in her words but her grip on him unrelenting. Smoke flowed from her body and into a fist, and she threw the stuff down his mouth. 

[TheAbsurdist]

John didn't have a response, instead he pushed hard at her, managing to break the grapple, though not before smoke poured out around his face and down his nose and throat, sputtering and staggering from her, as he did, he was swinging his fists wildly as he coughed.  There was little he could do beyond that, tears streaming out of his reddened, stinging eyes, as the roiling cloud of brimstone hung around his face, and his movements carried him towards the edge of the roof, if erratically.

 

Mistress... if he willing is trucking with creatures beyond your ken, how dangerous is he really?  Hmmmm?  How much of a threat is he if he overreaches?  And he happily lies about the standing of the bed he has made...  You can't trust him... I am sure you wont be judged too harshly, or unfairly.  Probably.

[Supercape]

Silence Tazel! snapped Carmen in her mind, losing patience with both herself and the demon insider her. 

 

Her head was spinning. She sure couldn't trust the twisted tongues of the infernal folk. Which meant she had to do her best to trust somebody. Even if John had outright lied to her, she had to believe in him. 

 

She cut of the smoke. 

 

"John, please. Trust me. I don't want to fight you, I want to help you. I may look like somethin' out of Dante's Inferno, but that's just cause I got a knack for dealing with devils rather than them dealing with me" she implored. 

 

"So lets just start being straight with one another, yeah? if you don't like it, we can just go back to bashing our brains out together, and I'm sure some cackling imp somewhere will get a good laugh out of it..."

[TheAbsurdist]

Tazel roiled in her gut at the admonishment, his anger a burning, acrid thing.  Much like him.  He chaffed at her commands.  Though he was amused, at the sputtering, coughing John pulled from Pitch.

 

His amusement would only grow finally into what would bass for infernal guffaws as John pitched over the side of the building and fell, silence pounding, as there was no crackle of her flames anymore.  Then came the thud, as a body impacted asphalt of the parking lot.  Baleful laughter would rock through her, but it wasn't enough to completely distract her from the sound of feet on the gravel of the roof.  When she turned to the sound, the Canto cane was jabbed into her gut.

 

Tazel stopped laughing.

 

Tazel screamed then, before he was vomited up from Carmen, and cast out as embers and ash onto the ground.

 

The metalhead desk clerk, was standing before her, a smile on thing, pale lips, a lip piercing glinting menacingly under feverish eyes.  "Shhh, shhh, shhh...don't cry for him, be thankful, be happy you are going to help me.  This trinket of yours is very nice, but it is going to help you fulfill your destiny."  He was looking at her with fervid admiration, but not in the way that carmen would be used to, as he cradled the cane to his form. 

[Supercape]

Expelling Tazel was never a pleasant experience, on the edge of pain, and over the edge of nausea, but it was tolerable - a bit like throwing up. When it came unexpectedly and suddenly, like now, it caught her without the steel of preparation, and she felt a sickly adrenaline and faintness from the rush. 

 

"What are you doing up here?" she asked. She had initially dismissed the young man as a nerd fan. That would teach her to dismiss anybody. 

 

"This ain't the time - or the place" she said, still giddy. "And that trinket of mine is no toy! it's a damn devil stick!" she said, regaining her balance and brushing her hair back. She was so indignant she barely registered that yet another person had seen her as Pitch. The rumour will would get hard to contain soon. 

 

"Just what is it you want? I'm busy saving a man's soul...and....he's just fallen off the side of a building..." she finished, rather awkwardly...

[TheAbsurdist]

"Shhh shhh.  This is the perfect time, the perfect place.  You should stop fighting, you are tired, aren't you?  Breathing hard.  This has taken a lot out of you."  He slowly took a step back from her then, that sickly smile still on his face.  "You probably killed him, maybe broke his neck, or his spine... Oh!  Maybe a rib punctured something vital and he is bleeding out."  He was still smiling as he looked at her.  "Some savior.  You just as easily pushed him... a little push...  Or maybe you intended to?  Or your little friend intended to... who is in control?"

 

His words would score deeper, but then the situation was bad.  And he might be right?  How certain was she that she was in control?  How much could she really rely on Tazel's obedience, what proof did she have?  Could he be tricking her? 

Edited December 14, 2013 by TheAbsurdist

[Supercape]

"Dammit! I am in control!" she answered, beating her chest. 

 

It wasn't true, of course, or at least wasn't totally true. Her life was spinning out of control from the moment she popped out of her mother. But, she always took comfort from the fact that she controlled the fact that it was out of control. And nobody else controlled her. 

 

"At least, nobody controls me! damn them, nobody controls me!" she said, shouting at him and feeling the rage pouring forth from her. She could virtually feel the fire of the infernal forge pouring through her, she could feel the urge to take a deep breath and spew fire like a dragon, burning this strange kid to a cinder. 

 

Yet a small part of her held back. Maybe it was caution, a caution born of dealing with trickster demons, of knowing that her foul temper and wild emotions could be played, and often where. Maybe it was the oddity of a nerd kid who suddenly knew how to handle demons, and had grown up with a century of machivellian wisdom and deceit. Or maybe it was the sting of the words, John with a broken spine - her own spine aching with the pains of her tattoo that had crippled her at birth. 

 

"And I'm going to save John, even if it kills me!" she swore, not thinking about her words, and running off to the roof edge where John had fallen, to gaze down...

[TheAbsurdist]

"Yelling makes it more true how?  I watched it, you choked him, he tried to get away, fell right off.  Are you sure you didn't want to kill him?  Or that a part of you or it... didn't want him dead?"  Venomous words, poisonous thoughts and he wasn't stopping using power to back it up.  There would be a bit of a help then as she rushed to the edge of the roof and looked down to see...

 

John, laying inert on the ground below.  Not moving visibly at this distance, on arm bent at an odd angle in his sleeve.

 

"Kills you, hm?  Looks like your help killed him.  I don't know if you can help him... but maybe... maybe you should join him, hm?  I mean, it's not as if you are good at this, and you're playing with forces you can't even understand, can't hope to compete with.  You are failing, and your failures are hurting people now.  Not hurting them in the future.  Hurting them now."

Edited December 14, 2013 by TheAbsurdist

[Supercape]

"Go to hell!" whispered Pitch, her face black with despair. 

 

"If people get hurt, its not for lack of me trying. Even if I fail. Even if I fall" she said. 

 

And with that, she tumbled off the building to John. 

 

It was, she told herself, the only way to get to him fast enough. She couldn't wait to limp down the stairs, to get to him, or a phone. 

 

But part of her wanted to jump, to end it all, to just be rid of the whole rotten mess, to stop her hurting herself, to stop her hurting everything around her. She felt a black numbness in her. She wasn't prone to suicide, or depression, but right now, she felt the words of the past hours eat her skull, and poison her. Right now, part of her felt empty, numb, and gone...

[Supercape]

Crack!

 

She landed badly. At least it wasn't her head. She was still conscious, she was still breathing. 

 

But even if John hadn't broken something, she was pretty sure she had. She had landed on her right leg. The nerve endings there were pretty shot, dulling sensation as well as causing paralysis. But even so, a split second of blinding pain well up to her eyes and she felt her vision constrict to black...

 

..and come back again. She was sprawled on the floor, blood on her cheek, bruised all over. Her ribs hurt, her arm hurt. Badly, but not, as a far as she could tell, broken. She had probably shot and strained all the muscled and ligaments in her legs. 

 

But worst of all, her right leg shouldn't bend like that. Not at all. She could only hope it was a break, not a shatter. And it hurt. 

 

Pennance for John...

 

She crawled towards her target, everything hurting, but teeth gritted. I'm gonna do this...was all she could think. A flame of defiance, never out, was fuelling her. 

[TheAbsurdist]

John was laying there, inert, but still breathing, there was some blood about his head, but he was breathing, sputtering a little, but he was breathing.  And then came a clatter as a knife was tossed between her and him.

 

"Hear that burbling?  Definitely has cracked ribs, probably broken.  That's not counting head trauma.  But then you pushed him over, didn't you?  Maybe not directly, but you made assumptions, you are lunging at shadow when nothing is there?  So scared, like a children when their nightlight breaks..."  And then he giggled, the metal head was sitting atop of a car near by.  "A dribbling vegetable, waiting to be filled by whatever demon comes along.  You should end that, before more people are hurt.  That's why you're doing it, right?  Save all those people..."

Edited January 2, 2014 by TheAbsurdist

[Supercape]

Carmen merely grunted. This was word play, and she didn't want to listen to it. Instead, she just focussed on dragging herself to John. 

 

"Well, kid" she answered the youth. "Whatever I say, you are just gonna twist back at me. I guess you got more practice than me at that, ain't ya?" she explained, as she hauled herself to John. What the kid had said might be true, but she just had to clam her mind up. The truth could twist people just as hard as lies. Harder, sometimes. 

 

"Just go and jabber on, please yourself. I'm sure you like the sound of listening to yerself. I won't be" she determined. The more she responded to the kid, the more he would respond back. He was an infernal troll, she decided. 

 

She pulled John, tugged at him. 

 

"John, John, wake up, man. Its time to wake up!" she said, slapping his face - probably harder than she should have. 

[TheAbsurdist]

A force buffeted at Carmen then, not grabbing at her, or at least not succeeding in grabbing at her, rather it hurled some loose debris from around her against the wall of the hotel.  With a growl, he slid off the car, and started moving towards them.  Lifting the cane, intent on attacking them both with it now.

 

And then John lurched, coughing forcefully, as he moved both arms, going to push himself up, only to scream out as one arm was definitely broken, and he rolled on his back, away from her, instinctively cradling the arm and curling.  His eyes wild in pain and confusion.  Lifting his head and trying to focus, but clearly he was knocked loopy from the fall, though seemingly alive, or perhaps just running on adrenaline.