Erich Storm's Teeth
It is well after business hours,
so at least there's that. Still doubtlessly there are people Working
Late in Eva's law offices despite that it is 1) Saturday and 2) Saturday
night. So perhaps the young savage emerging from the emergency
stairwell from somewhere above-stairs still manages to draw a
glance or two as he makes his way through the halls, past the partners'
offices with their nice oaken doors and nice mahogany furniture, past
the cubicle farm where the lessers sit, all the way to the tiny little
mecca of the kitchen.
There is a Keurig machine there, and lots of
those little K-cup packs tucked up in the cupboard above. Erich has
long since discovered the stash. He pops a nice Tully's French Roast
in, then raids the fridge for pastries. Maybe they have apple
turnovers. Or if not, maybe he can at least make himself a PB&J.
Eva
This
time of year there are always pastries. A constant supply of them
baked by the staff or brought in by clients or vendors as holiday
gifts. Never forget the breadbox full of bagels and the tiny little
packets of peanut butter in individual containers, the sort one usually
finds on the breakfast buffets in medium-rate hotels, the sort with a
waffle machine and a tiny fridge full of tiny yogurt containers and the
saddest selection of Red Delicious apples you'll see this side of
Wal-Mart.
There is also - somewhere in that fridge - a tuna sandwich named Kevin.
The
door to the kitchen opens behind Erich while the Keurig is still
warming up. It drifts off to sleep when left unattended over the
weekend, so he has an extra minute or two to spend perusing the contents
of the fridge before it is time to pop in the Tully's.
"You've
made yourself at home." A woman's voice, mildly ironic but without
asperity. "I trust you've found everything you require?"
Lola Hawkes
This
time of night Lola would typically be back around The Homestead by now,
bringing in a final armful of wood for the furnace or trying to teach
Hector to speak Spanish while he, in return, tried to teach her how to
pluck chords out on a guitar. She'd been in the city visiting her
cousin, though, sharing a cup of something warm while she forced
information about the Nation and their current events down the reluctant
relative's throat. As she was driving back home a thought occurred to
her, a snap decision was made, and the rusted 1980-something truck
ventured to the heart of the city rather than making its way to the
freeway.
Some twenty minutes later, Lola had convinced the front
security man (thankfully a Kinfolk) to let her in even though she didn't
have a key card to badge her way through the doors. Somehow, she'd
also gotten him to help her check the cameras and figure out
approximately Erich had been most recently, as the Uktena was hunting
for him specifically and was unwilling to go trolling an entire
skyscraper looking for him.
The Kinsman assisted by checking
cameras with a reluctant frown on his face, but was able to pinpoint a
broad-shouldered blond-headed figure cutting across a screen in the last
ten minutes and directed Lola which floor to go to. She thanked him
gruffly (although there was nothing personal about it) and was on her
way.
This is how she ends up making her way through the entrance
of the law firm that Eva worked at, looking some mix between cautious
and very self assured, but clearly unprepared for how large the office
that she'd stepped into was. Desks, workspaces, offices, computers....
It seemed a maze to her. So, slow and with a frown etched into her
face, Lola's hands went into the pockets of her open coat and she
started to stalk along the perimeter of the office with half the lights
turned off that she'd found her way into, not saying a word and hunting
with her eyes and ears instead.
Erich Storm's Teeth
Erich yelps.
He not only yelps, he fumbles with the two K-cups he has in hand, because obviously he's decided to brew himself not one but two
cups of Eva's firm's coffee. Also he has a little paper plate stacked
with two apple turnovers, a lemon bar, and two brownie bites.
So
yes. He's made himself at home. And found everything requires. Once
the fumbling is under control and the K-cups are picked up off the
floor, he turns to Eva.
"You scared the crap out of me! I thought
Susan from Billing, who said she was going to call security next time
she saw me stealing food. I mean, sharing food."
Erich Storm's Teeth
[I FORGOT ERICH ONLY EATS MEAT. his plate is actually stacked with those hickory farm sausages and stuff.]
Eva
"Susan
from Billing has no reason to be here after dark on a Saturday night.
I'm sure she has a date with a Lifetime Original Movie and a bowl of
popcorn tonight, and has to be up early for mass in the morning."
The
kinswoman's attire is decidedly more evening than weekend tonight. She
wears a bodyskimming little black dress with a cashmere wrap thrown
over her bare arms against the office chill. The deep, blooded red of
Mozambique garnets at her ears and her throat. She's barefoot, though.
Must have kicked off her somewhere in her office.
"I
will make you a deal, though. If you confine your commissary raids to
the opposite of ordinary work hours, I will endeavour to ensure that
whatever you require is available, when you require it.
"And, Erich?" The brief, dark grace of her eyes on his profile. The slicing edge of an incipient - something. Call it a smile. "You're a Shadow Lord. I refuse to believe that I frightened you."
Lola Hawkes
Somewhere
past a few rows of flimsy temporary walls and desks lined with drab
pictures of marriages and children and pets, voices start to leak their
way into the hallway. Lola's steps aren't loud, she's wearing simple
soft-soled white sneakers instead of heavy boots today. Boots are best
for hiking, for traversing the terrain, but on pavement and sidewalks
and tiled floors sneakers were just the better option all around.
Eva's
expressing that she doesn't believe she frightened Erich when Lola
wraps her way around into the open doorway of the kitchenette. She has
no business being here, and it would be no doubt startling for either of
the Shadow Lords to see the vaugely familiar face there. All the same,
Lola stands in the doorway like she has every right to be there, one
hand on the door frame and the other resting in the pocket of the simple
open black jacket that she was wearing. Under that she had a white
T-shirt with a screenprint image of something colorful or another on the
front of it, and the shirt was tucked into the high waistband of a navy
blue cotton skirt that she wore, which was stitched in a way to flow
out from the body without being drastic, and the hem stopped at the
middle of her shins.
Jeans weren't cutting it for her these days--
she only had one pair left that would button up in any comfortable way,
and even then leaning or bending while wearing them was uncomfortable.
Her dense mass of black hair was in a knot at the nape of her neck, and
her cheeks and nose were still just a touch reddened from the cool
outside.
Her expression was only the tiniest bit surprised-- for
some reason she hadn't quite expected to see Eva there. But all the
same, she jerks her chin up in greeting to the both of them.
"Evenin'."
Erich Storm's Teeth
"Yeah well," Erich looks a little uncomfortable, "I guess I'm not a very good Shadow Lord. Anyway, you
didn't scare me. The apparition of Susan from Billing scared me." He
scans her for a beat, and then his brain-mouth filter fails again: "Why
are you dressed like that, anyway? Or well. Why are you here, dressed
like that?"
Lola appears. If she looks surprised, Erich looks doubly so. Then Erich looks sort of disgruntled.
"Hi," he says, a little stiffly.
Eva
"I'm
here because Congressman Wildborn's nephew was arrested for DUI and
possession with intent to distribute and I intend to have him out before
sunrise."
A quiet huff.
"I'm dressed like this - "
Whatever she was going to say (she is a Shadow Lord, she was going to say nothing)
is forestalled, as Lola appears in the dark offices, in the hall
outside the kitchen. The floor is virtually empty at this hour, though a
few industrious, foolhardy, or masochistic associates are no doubt
holed up in their offices. Those with a hope of reaching 2000 billable
hours for the year, anyway. The rest have given up.
A brief, winging look from Erich to Lola, and back again. Her finely arched brows rise in an elegant curl of query.
"Good evening. May I help you?"
Lola Hawkes
Lola
had clearly surprised the pair of them, although for one the expression
of surprise is clear and for the other it's more felt, assumed, figured
than anything else. Erich's greeting was stiff, naturally, and Eva
asked if she needed some sort of help from her. Lola's dark eyes cast
from Kinfolk to Garou. She didn't smile to either of them, but greeted
the pair of them none the less.
First, to Eva: "No, thanks
though. I'm here huntin' for him--" She nodded her head toward Erich
when she said this, then continued-- "though I wasn't sure if you ever
heard 'bout what happened with that Nina gal or not?
Second, to Erich: "Ya got a minute?"
Erich Storm's Teeth
"I hope his uncle's paying you really well for coming to save his ass instead of enjoying whatever it is you dressed up for."
He
glances at Lola again. And, heart-on-sleeve creature that he is, he
frowns again. At least he doesn't yell NO and run off somewhere,
though. He just gathers up his yummies and his coffee.
"Whatever
you wanna say to me, you can say in front of my tribeswoman." Well
isn't he just the Thunder loyalist tonight. "Let's go back upstairs,
though. C'mon, if we take the stairs it's quicker than walking all the
way to the elevators and waiting."
Milton Kegler
"No
need to get up!" He says passing security. "I got this!" In this world
there are doers, and there are... Not doers! Milton is one of the first,
and in this case what he was DOING was walking and he sure as fuck
didn't need some security guard telling him how to walk! This was his
life and he would live it his way without the man telling him how to
live it!
Soon enough he was onto the elevator and headed up, up,
up to... Well, see who might be around. Someone's around right? This
place wasn't exactly the kinda place you could abandon, not with the
great white tentacle living far below them! Nope, this place was an
active threat that required a garou presence so... Milton figured he'd
find an army in the section set away for the garou. However, there was a
hint of surprise on his face when he found the place empty.
"Uhm...
Hello?" He calls out softly as he steps off the elevator and begins
wandering around. Clearly this was not a Glasswalker operation, shit
would have been handled, organized, and there would be teams up here
even now planning the next set of steps for the folks in this city.
Hmm... Children of Gaia are running the show maybe? It's hard to say,
but Milton wasn't gonna give up that easy, there had to be someone
around here tonight!
Eva
"His uncle
is not paying me overmuch." Erich's tribeswoman replies, her voice low
and quite nearly instructive. Cool, assuredly, quite as cool as her
glance when Lola allows that she has found her way into the offices of
Éva's law firm because she was looking for Erich.
A glance then,
at the Ahroun's profile, as he frowns so openly, a plate of smoked
sausages and a double-mug of Keurig coffee in hand.
"But he will owe me."
Some things, after all, are more valuable than money.
Family. One's good name.
Favors, assuredly.
"The back stairwell is around the corner."
That
instruction is for Lola. Éva's reasons for accompanying the duo are
her own, but accompany them she does: out the door of the kitchen, to
the back stairs, echoing and industrial. And up and up and up.
Lola Hawkes
Erich
explains that anything Lola needs to say to him can be said in front of
Eva, and that they should head upstairs. Lola glanced to the plate of
smoked and dried meats and the two cups of coffee that Erich was
managing to balance and raised one expressive eyebrow just a little, but
her attention was pulled away by the older Kinswoman who explained they
could use the back stairwell that was that-a-way, around the corner.
Lola
shrugged one shoulder and stepped back out of the doorway, and would
wait for the pair to pass before bringing up the rear and following to
the stairwell.
She doesn't wait to start talking. Apparently she
was completely comfortable with having her conversation with Eva
around. If there was one thing that Lola was unfamiliar with (up until
very recent events, at least), it was a solid sense of shame.
"I
was gonna wait 'till the moon was thinner, but I was in town already,"
she begins explaining, and catches the door from whoever passed before
her when they enter into the stairwell and start making their way
upstairs. "I owe you an apology, man. I shouldn't have pushed ya like I
did."
Erich Storm's Teeth
Well, color Erich
surprised. Not so surprised that he drops his coffee and sausage plate
down the stairs, but -- surprised enough that, marching up ahead of the
kinswomen, he turns and kind of just ... looks surprisedly at Lola.
"Wow." He sounds genuinely impressed. And maybe Eva, who thinks in terms of what people owe her and what those favors could amount to in the future,
also thinks Erich is totally wasting a chance to hold this over Lola
for some future gain, but -- "That was pretty cool how you just owned
that. I respect the guts that took.
"And well. I'm pretty sure I
had a part in escalating that too. Like I'm pretty sure I jumped down
your throat a couple times. So. I'm sorry I didn't even try to make
peace or anything."
Eva
They walk
that brief stretch of hall to the stairwell. Éva opens the door, Lola
is bringing up the rear. But before the security door snaps closed
behind them, the eerie, almost rather angular sound of a phone ringing
in a silent office. Just the rush of forced air from the furnace, the
hum of the electronics. The whirr of some machinery, somewhere far
away.
Still, that ring. Éva snaps her head up, pauses on the rough, concrete stairs, a narrow frown knit between her brows.
"It
sounds like the two of you can work this out own your own." Mildly
spoken, all told. "If you'll excuse me, I do have to get that. Good
night."
Lola Hawkes
Lola had just let go of the
door to let it smack closed behind her when Eva declared that she needed
to go get the ringing door. Erich was already partway up the first
half-flight of stairs. So, the Uktena snatched the door by its handle
and held it back open for Eva, and waited until the woman had passed
through before letting it close again. She provided Eva with an
off-handed kind of: "Goodnight, then," before the heavy security door
thwacked back into place in its frame and the pair born under the Full
Moon were left to ascend the staircase as a duo instead.
Erich was
clearly surprised by what Lola had to say. Perhaps he thought she was
seeking round two, or that she was going to try and better define the
ground that she was trying to stand on when they'd gotten into their
argument a week ago. He says that the's impressed with her and
apologizes as well. Lola just looked up at him evenly, but didn't offer
any smiles.
Rather, she began that climb up the staircase and
nodded her head to urge him to come along as well, though he was
probably starting the journey himself already. "Ain't your place to be
making peace," she said dismissively. She kept close to the right and
let her hand trail along the railing to help along the way up. Lola was
a solid creature, built to last and weather the worst of storms, but
her body was forever exhausted these days and after three flights she's
slowed, is taking her time with her steps, but refuses to pant or break a
sweat. She was a proud thing, after all.
She'll be waiting for his guidance as to which floor they're stopping at, and so stays a few steps behind him.
"I
don't think we're gonna agree on what we were fighting about, so I
ain't even gonna try with that subject again. But... I know what your
Kinswoman was gonna say before I... 'eh... left. Wanna set that
straight, at least. That I don't hide behind bein' a Kinfolk, and that
wasn't what I was tryin' ta say." That thread of pride gleams bright,
and there's a disgruntled edge to her words. "But I figure that's a
conversation for her and not you."
It seems Lola had a number of full and pseudo apologies to make following her actions last weekend.
Milton Kegler
Milton
was seated in the hallway at this point, with a smile on his face as he
wandered around the building's internal security system curiously on
his iPad. How the iPad was interfacing with the local security system
would be anyone's guess, but Milton seemed to be having a blast peeking
around and seeing what this building had in the way of defenses. It was
surprisingly easy for the new moon to lose all interest in what he was
doing and find himself sucked into something else.
Erich Storm's Teeth
"Night,
Eva," Erich calls after the departing kinswoman who is, he supposes,
sort of his ward. Or something. Weird thinking about her like that.
Weird and somewhat ill-fitting, especially since Erich is fairly sure
Eva has more money, connections, resources and wiles than he ever will.
So it's not like she exactly needs to be looked after. "You should
come visit upstairs sometime. I mean, you were half the reason our
showdown with the Beloved Horror was even the semi-success it was. So.
Yeah."
Then she's gone, and it's just him and Lola. And they're
trudging up the stairs, and after three flights Erich is obliged to stop
because Lola was clearly winded. "Just four more," he assures her,
which might not be all that assuring because four more ffs.
"Melantha's
not my kinswoman," he adds, almost reflexively. "She's my packmate,
but she doesn't belong to anyone but herself. Anyway, yeah. I didn't
think you were hiding behind being a kinfolk. At all. I mean I sort of
thought you maybe ... should a little more almost? 'Cause dude,
challenging full-moons to throw down on a full moon is gonna get you
beat up or killed someday. 'Cause some of us have totems that tell us
we can't refuse a challenge, you know? Plus, tempers."
He starts climbing again. Four stories. Five. Six. He pauses again:
"Anyway
what I'm saying is: I know you weren't hiding behind that. But yeah,
that's probably something you and her should talk out. You guys might
actually have some common ground. A lot of differences too though.
"C'mon," he says. "One more flight."
Up
at the top, an unremarkable steel door opening into the hallway of the
ex-Sept. Erich has been camping out there for a while now, and while he
doesn't sleep here often, and doesn't even come here every single day,
he's here often enough that his scent lingers in the air. Some of his
stuff can be found lying around -- a cellphone here, a bag of chips
there -- particularly near what used to be the challenge circle.
They
don't get that far, though, before they run into Milton. Who is a
stranger to Erich. Which instantly prompts the young Ahroun to call,
"Hey! Who are you?"
Eva
If Éva understood that Erich thought of her as, sort of,
his ward, the look she flashes him before the security door swings shut
would be considerably cooler and rather more guarded. Instead, there's
a quiet beat of her steady regard, the mild twist of the beginning of
an ironic little something that reacts not-at-all to the compliment, so much as the invitation.
"I will."
Is all she says, then. There are no other farewells.
Lola Hawkes
"I
think ya knew what I meant, given ya knew who I was talkin' about,"
Lola countered when Erich corrected her to say that Melantha was not
his Kinswoman. She sounds a little aggravated, but Erich's probably
able to pick up by now that this is Lola's default. She huffs and pulls
on the railing to get herself around the corner.
She was about to
ask more about the Black Fury Kinfolk that he'd somehow decided to fold
into his pack with a Silver Fang, of all tribes for a Shadow Lord to be
gelling with, but the length of her pause gave Erich the floor again
and he explained that he was pretty well aware that she wasn't making an
effort to hide behind anything. After all, if she was going to use
being a Kinfolk as a shield, she probably wouldn't have tried so hard to
put her face directly into his in the first place. She would have
accepted it when Hector tried to steer her away and when Javed tried to
be a buffer and told her to leave.
"I'm comin'," she said somewhat
impatiently as he encouraged her to keep going up that last flight of
stairs. She had an expression of minor strain on her face, and took a
second to pause at the top of the stairs. Her hand had moved toward her
lower stomach, brushed against it briefly before she quickly,
self-consciously tugged her skirt out and made like she was just wiping
sweat from her fingertips onto the fabric before straightening up and
following the Shadow Lord through the door.
"I've been fighting
with Wolves my whole life, so I suppose I didn't think much of it. I've
been bitten a couple times before." She may have had more to say, but
Erich's asking about an identity and Lola peers at the body sitting on
the floor against the hallway wall. There's a glint of light against
thick glasses, and Lola blinks once before greeting simply: "Hey
Milton."
Milton Kegler
He hears someone speaking
and he holds up his hand. "Sh, sh. One sec..." He says to the man while
he fiddles around on his iPad for a second or two, before pausing and
lowering the screen. "There we go!" He says, before grinning in Lola's
direction and tilting his head back a bit. "S'up?" He asks the kin, in
his best attempt to look cool while slowly rising to his feet.
"I
was just lookin' around the building, you'd be surprised how defensible
this place is when you put your mind to it. You folks actually got
attacked in here?" He asks, looking between them.
"Oh right!
Pokes-the-Mind's-Eye! We, uhm, worked together a little when you all led
the battle in the basement a while back. I was also the fool at the
moot a little while back..." He adds that last part with a little smile
figuring the Ahroun would recall him sooner or later. Ahrouns were like
Boxers, touch as nails, and sometimes pretty cool, but expecting them to
remember things, or know much about stuff was going a little far, and
Milton had no problem helping to jog the Ahroun's memory.
"What're you two doin' here so late?"
Erich Storm's Teeth
"Yeah
well, I've been stung by a bee before," Erich replies. "Doesn't mean
it's really a great idea for me to go around bashing beehives to get
stung again, y'know?"
Erich's having memory issues lately. First
he forgets Lola was at some warmoot that he sort-of-called; now he
forgets Milton was involved with the basement bonanza. "Oh, right."
This isn't any more convincing than what he claimed to remember Lola,
either. "I remember you now.
"I'm just trying to maintain a
presence here," he says. "Javed, Avery, me and a couple others don't
think we should close down this Sept entirely. I think Lola was just
here to talk to me. What about you?"
Lola Hawkes
Milton
had shushed them at first, finishing something that he was doing with
the tablet in her lap. Lola was in no hurry to rush him to conclude
what he was up to-- there was no urgency about the woman save for a
vague and constant itch to get herself back home, back out to the land
that she lived on and planned to die protecting one day as well. The
fact that she was up more than thirty stories high made her
uncomfortable too, but she made herself stand with a straight back and
shoulders to prevent that from betraying her too severely.
When the bespectacled young man was up and greeting people, he'd asked Lola, simply, 'Sup?.
Lola slipped her hands back into the pockets of the unbuttoned jacket
she was wearing and answered back with a rolling shrug of one shoulder.
"Just needed a word with Erich here, but that's pretty much done."
She'd
heard that Hector had kicked the shit out of Milton a little while ago,
shortly after having to retrieve her from a hospital bed due to the
fact that no healing talens were present on the mission she'd
accompanied the Ragabash on. There's a mild crease between her eyebrows
that reflects the thought when she looks upon the younger man, but she
doesn't speak to it. Clearly he survived the ordeal, after all, with no
lasting damage.
Her attention next shifted to her right, up past her shoulder to where Erich stood.
"If I'm gonna make it home before sleep takes me I need to be going. Figure I'll excuse myself if that's the case."
Erich Storm's Teeth
"Thanks
for coming by," Erich says. He means it. "Listen: I know you don't
think this Sept is worth keeping around. But if you change your mind,
or even if you don't, your helping hand's always gonna be welcome here.
All right?"
Milton Kegler
If Milton holds any ill
will towards Hector it doesn't show. To be honest, a Ragabash who
doesn't expect to get the shit kicked out of him for absolutely no
reason, really isn't gettin' into their role as much as they should be!
Hurt bodies, and feelings, heal, and Milton was one hell of a lot
stronger than he appeared on the outside!
"Honestly, I figured
this place'd be locked down and crawling with true-borns planning our
next step. I mean, I understand giving things a little time after a
great battle and all, but I can't sit around on my ass any longer! We've
got people out there who are probably pissed as hell at us, and I, for
one, don't wanna wait until they start choking us to death in dark
alleys one by one after catchin' us with our pants down." He shrugs his
shoulders.
"That's really neither here nor there at this point
though, is it? I mean, the war party I expected to find turns out to be
little more than a skeleton crew. So I guess I've gotta rethink that,
though... I suspect I could do somethin' for security around here to
make things a little easier on the folks who are hangin' out atound
here." He says back to Erich, he was ready to go, he didn't require much
prompting to immediately tear into whatever happened to be on his mind
at any given moment, such was who he was.
Lola, however, wants to
excuse herself, and he gives a little nod. "If you gotta go, don't let
me stop you!" He says with a little smile towards the kin.
Erich Storm's Teeth
Erich
snorts. "You, me, and like about half a dozen others are the only ones
who think like that. The Great Elder thinks we should just shut this
place down, and in fact he ordered everyone else out of here. That's
why the security's all quiet, the spirits are all Slumbering or gone,
and the place is deserted. Those of us still hanging around here are
almost doing it in defiance of the Great Elder. I mean, no one's come
and told us to stop, but ... yeah.
"So if you're worried
about pissing the Great Elder off -- and I'm not gonna look down at you
at all if you are -- you probably should avoid the place too. But if
you think maybe keeping a guard on a portal to god-knows-what,
especially when half of a REALLY powerful Dancer pack is still romping
around out there hoping to get in and open that portal wide, then I'm
gonna tell you what I told Lola just now. Your helping hand's always
gonna be welcome here.
"Especially if you think you can shore up
the security here again. 'Cause right now, we don't have shit. We just
have some of us volunteering to take turns watching over stuff."
Lola Hawkes
Well,
at least he acknowledged that Lola feels like the Spire Sept really
should just be evacuated until whatever it was in the basement could be
completely sealed off forever. All the same, he was inviting her to
come and lend her hand to the efforts here in this impossibly tall and
unsettling building. One corner of the Kinswoman's mouth pressed and
pulled, almost into half a smile, but that faded quickly enough.
Instead, she just nodded and looked over to Milton.
For the
Ragabash, she reached out and slapped a hand against his shoulder a
couple of times. She could stand there and talk battle tactics and
start making plans to go after what remained of Beloved Horror, but now
was not the time. She'd see him again, she was sure.
For Erich, he got a nod of the head and a mirroring thwack on a shoulder that was considerably beefier than Milton's.
"No
promises on guarding this perimeter unless that sinkhole in the
basement starts coughing up monsters again. But I'll see you around."
And with that said, the Kinfolk found an elevator this time to take herself back to earth.
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