Night 58: Chapel

[sainted]

[from here]

The room he walked into was larger than he'd expected, but it wasn't hard to guess its purpose, not with the very deliberate arrangement of long red pews. A chapel. Stefan's grip on his knife still didn't relax as he wandered further inside. He'd been in a few churches in his time — what faith in God he'd possessed as a child had waned with too many decades of undead existence, but... call him cliché, he liked Gothic architecture. In his worst moments, he'd enjoyed hunting for victims in church, for the spice of ironic pleasure in knowing they believed themselves to be in a safe house, protected by all those popular fiction vampire deterrents. Save for wooden stakes, fire and the sun, they were all myths. Not that there were any crosses he could see from his cursory glance from the door, or even...

Holy water.

In the dark, the liquid burble of the fountain could've been confused for normal water — or, to the least, one of the less threatening noises in the hospital. You could even convince yourself that the sinister shape rising out of the water was something else from this distance, but Stefan, being able to see in the dark, had no such luxury. Still, the demonic face of the statue barely registered to his mind as he came closer to the fountain. He walked slowly, circling around it, unaware of what he was doing. All of his attention was fixed on the liquid churning in the fountain. Black, blacker than water should've been in the darkness. A deep red flooded the whites of Stefan's eyes. His gums itched. The scent of blood — human blood — hung so heavily in the air around him, he could hardly breathe.

Of course he could tell. Damon might joke that his taste buds had shriveled up after so many years of his diet, but it might as well have been the difference between white wine and vinegar. Human blood and animal blood. And it hadn't been so long either since the last time he'd had a taste of the former, fresh from the vein...

...but he couldn't do it again. Never, no matter how desperate he was. He was starving, yes, four nights and counting, but if he started it up now, under these conditions... There was no guarantee he could reclaim himself again. And he thought of his brother, trying to scheme his way out for all of them, and of Elena, putting on a brave face for their sakes, and of adding another burden on their shoulders. Stefan slapped a hand over his nose and mouth, which helped just enough to let him turn his face away.

Keep fighting.

Stefan spun around, almost faster than humanly possible, and ran.

[to here]

Comments

[ofthemotions]

Right. Safety in numbers, from the shadows moving in the corner. Mikado shook his head slightly, and followed Izaya into the chapel. And as the man called out, the boy caught what had flitted through Izaya's notice. And then stared outright. Was that a... It couldn't be real... Like a house set up to scare people, maybe. Maybe that was it.

He stepped forward a few steps, curiosity begging him to look closer at the statue situated at the front of the room when a deeper voice called in reply. Mikado froze instantly, a quarter of the way down the aisle as he looked for the owner of the voice. This was the military guy? He didn't look that unfriendly. Not compared to the other men Mikado had interacted with.

The boy kept to silence for now. Izaya had called out, so Mikado would wait for the man to introduce himself first.

[propheteer]

Good; the man was right where he was reported to be. Izaya turned his light in the direction of the voice, spotting the man waving them closer. The man seemed the friendly sort—or at least much friendlier than their usual escorts. Already Izaya had heard more out Harrington than any other soldier.

He started towards the soldier's position. "Just to confirm: we're to speak with you if we have any information about that renegade... correct?"

That was it according to the earlier announcement, but there may have been many things left unsaid. Izaya wasn't entirely sure whether he could get anything useful out of Harrington to begin with (even with the friendly exterior, or perhaps especially because of it), so for now, he was going to take it slowly. Confirm first, then work his way up.

[damned-soldiers.livejournal.com]

A young one. Two young ones, technically. Then again, this place was a hotbed for youthful talent and exuberance--at least, if the figures given to him happened to be correct. That, however, was moving away from the present. Claude flashed a smile to the younger of the pair, before regarding the other.

"Correctomundo!" he said in a cheerful voice. "Please, please! Have a seat!" With a graceful hand, Claude gestured to the pews behind him.

[ofthemotions]

There was an overpopulation of energetic people at this place, and Mikado really didn't know if he should want to find out why. He glanced back at Izaya, who was heading towards the soldier's position, then glanced back at the statue. He could look at it later. It'd be more polite to over to them right now.

With a brief look of longing at what seemed to be a blood fountain, he trod over to the other two, pausing a few feet away. Again, he shot a glance at Izaya, then gave in to habits. "Ah, you're, um. Major Harrington, then?" The boy leaned forward in a quick bow. Should he be polite, like meeting a stranger? Or was this person more someone that was seen as an enemy? He was awfully friendly for that, but still. He glanced down, suddenly self-conscious. "...It's nice to meet you," he ended, a bit disheartened in tone.

He really needed to learn more about how this place worked quicker.

[propheteer]

Harrington was moving further and further from the kind of person Izaya had pictured when the announcement had been made—though come to think of it, wasn't 'Harrington' the one who'd given the exuberant announcements earlier that day? He should have recognized the name sooner.

Izaya slid into the pew behind Harrington at the invitation as Mikado bowed and greeted the soldier. He smiled to himself at the polite gesture, but he was more interested in what he might learn than in introductions.

"Unfortunately, the announcement earlier was a bit vague," he said. "Obviously, parts of it were directed at a certain pair, but it's possible that more than just those two have come across the required information." He paused briefly, and then added, "But without a little more detail about what exactly the general wants to know... 'Information on the identity of the rogue soldier', he said, but that doesn't mean there's only one."

He'd chosen his words carefully, but Izaya wasn't at all sure how Harrington might respond to them. He wasn't nearly well connected enough here to have some small pieces of information he could slip in to help the man open up, so for now he was going to try to rely on possibilities: it was possible he knew something, so could one please elaborate?

[damned-soldiers.livejournal.com]

The boy's greeting was pathetic enough to be pitied, and Claude wondered if he was nervous. The major looked at him with a focused expression and decided that no, the kid was just his usual self. A lot of teenagers were self-conscious in public, weren't they? The fault of puberty, he supposed. Claude should pity him.

"No need ta be so yella-bellied. Here." He reached into his pocket and produced a handkerchief, which the man began to unfold. "See this hand?" The aforementioned hand extended its fingers to show only flesh. "Nothin' fishy, right?" With a graceful move, he draped the cloth across the hand, hiding it from view. "Now, I'm gonna say the magic words and cause this handkerchief to disappear. And...frazzlecraz!"

With that, the cloth and the hand practically exploded, a pillar of flames flaring upward. It stopped just a foot before the ceiling, burning brightly for seven seconds before disappearing abruptly. Claude had promised not to burn everything, after all. "Neat trick, huh?" he chirped, waving his once engulfed hand to show that it was, indeed, a neat trick.

As if pretending nothing out of the ordinary had just ocurred, the soldier turned to Izaya. "Yer about right on the money," he replied. This one was clever, perhaps more so than his other guests, and though Claude was tempted to keep quiet, he had a standard of utter stupidity to uphold. "The General has confirmation for one, but he's startin' to think there might be more. Better ta open up a line of communication than hunt our pair down, right?"

Never mind he told Rapunzel the direct opposite.

[ofthemotions]

Mikado shifted awkwardly as Izaya spoke, glancing to the side. In the end, he was going to have to change his approach on how he handled things here. Defaulting to as he always would was getting him nowhere, and could he really handle just knowing nothing in the end? No, he would have to decide on a course of action and keep to it, step forward in a way that--

...Was the man talking to him?

Determination temporarily scattered, Mikado pointed at himself, then stepped closer, confused and curious despite himself. 'Yella-bellied'? What did that even mean? And a... magic trick? Mikado really couldn't read this guy. Why was it that everyone he met today was so....

Mikado's head tipped to the side, wide eyes watching the air where fire had been a moment before. His mouth opened slightly, as he moved to stare at the hand waved instead. That had been... Had that been a trick? There wasn't any-- Could there have been a lighter somewhere? Or was it something else? Could it be something else? Something a lot more interesting than just a trick.

The boy blinked rapidly, expression shifting from shock into a kind of childlike delight. As soon as Harrington finished addressing Izaya, Mikado leaned forward, hands clenched in fists at chest level. "Can you do that again?"

[propheteer]

Harrington was pretty good at magic tricks—maybe even a little too good. Mikado was thrilled (if his expression and request for an encore was anything to go by), but Izaya found the trick to be a little overly flashy, himself—and maybe even a little suspicious. But Harrington also wasn't the soldier (or possibly soldiers) that his mind was fixated on right now.

He'd gotten a little bit of information out of the man with his opening bid: the words had indeed been directed towards a select few, and there was a belief that there could be more than one soldier gone rogue. He'd almost been hoping for there to be only one, so he could use the possibility of others to continue. But since Harrington had been open about the general's suspicions, perhaps he could follow along that line for more.

Izaya remained quiet for a moment to see if Harrington would repeat his trick for Mikado, and then finally continued, "The thing is... If someone outside of that pair were to have information on one or more rogue soldiers, how should they know which one it was that you're looking for the name of tonight? There was very little to go on in the announcement, after all, but with valuable information like that, it wouldn't be wise to offer all of it at once. If it were me, I would only offer the relevant pieces."

He paused, giving Harrington a thin smile. "Of course, this is just theoretical...."

[damned-soldiers.livejournal.com]

Oh, how charming. The boy was impressed--excited in the way babies were for funny men in poorly made tuxes with cheap parlor tricks. Claude watched the teenager for a bit, contemplating his next act. Which proved to be rather anticlimactic in anyone's eyes, i.e., he snapped his fingers, causing his thumb to light up in a small flame. This he held to the boy as if to say, "Here. Happy?"

With one appeased, Claude turned to the other. Yes, this man was smarter than the rest. "Haha, ya know, didn't think much of that," he crooned, once again playing the part of the dumb buzzard. "But orders are orders. The General must have 'nother reasons for this." And if Claude knew, he wasn't saying a word.

"Or just hoppin' mad." he concluded. The man leaned forward, feigning contemplation.

[ofthemotions]

A small trick it might have been, but it still held Mikado's attention perfectly. He had watched closely this time, eyes looking for hidden devices, wires or triggers. The boy caught nothing of the sort but with long sleeves like that it was still possible. Mikado hadn't seen anything like it before, but he'd heard of festivals and circuses with men who specialized in tricks like that. Still, it didn't stop him from reaching out, to move his fingers over the flame. Heat, searing. It wasn't just visual at least.

"How...?" he murmured, eyes fastened on the man's hand. He was hoping too much, he knew, but he wanted it to be more than a trick. The whole process nearly took his attention away from the adults' discussion. He was vaguely aware of Izaya hinting of multiple traitors and wondered if there really were more than one. Did Izaya actually know or was he hinting for information? Either way, Mikado would learn more by silence in that subject.

[propheteer]

...The general, huh?

There had been precious little Izaya could glean from Harrington's response, but instead of trying a different approach now, he stuck to the one he'd already started. He'd try it just a little longer, and hopefully he'd be able to find out if Harrington would be any use to him at all. What had he said again? 'Orders are orders.' He could have simply been ordered here without actually knowing anything himself.

But even if he turned out to be useless, at least he was entertaining.

"Perhaps he is," Izaya agreed. "But if, as I suggested, someone were to indeed have potential information regarding the renegade you're actually looking for... Could you help us to distinguish, or would we need to speak to your 'mad' general for that?"

It was much more straightforward than his previous approach, but at this point, he felt the situation called for it. After all—who knew how much longer they might even have tonight?

[damned-soldiers.livejournal.com]

"There ain't no flint and lighter fluid, if that's what yer wonderin'," Claude stated without glancing at the boy. The flicker of flame dispersed, and he pressed that hand against his chin. "It's 100% me." And evolution, but he wasn't about to explain that process.

But he would play the other guy's game. Claude had nothing to lose for the time being. "Distinguish, hm?" He tapped a finger. "They're 'pparently high ranked. Likely part of this project. That's about all we got in terms of distinguishin' facts. Tho'." The man chuckled. "Ya could request an appointment with the General if ya wanted."

That would be fun.

[ofthemotions]

The flame went out like a light, and Mikado found himself blinking. No, if it was a simple trick, how could it simply go out like that? Wouldn't he need to wave it, or put something over it? And the hand which was now resting on the man's chin held no scorch marks or anything like fluid to explain it away. Mikado blinked rapidly. The possibility of it being a trick was dwindling... But the man seemed more interested in what Izaya was saying than entertaining Mikado, and the boy turned his attention to the conversation.

...Which had went in an interesting direction while he wasn't paying attention. His eyebrows raised. They could meet with the man that was in charge? That seemed like a possibility in itself. He hesitated for a moment, then spoke up. "How would we request it?"

[propheteer]

Mikado had taken the words right out of Izaya's mouth. Harrington had said a few interesting things in the course of the conversation (not least of which was the claim that his magic show might not have been just clever sleight of hand), but of them all: the suggestion that they could 'book an appointment' topped the list.

He nodded in agreement with Mikado, and added, "Perhaps they just don't like me, but I've found that most of the soldiers here--aside from yourself--will barely give the time of day, let alone arrange a meeting with the man in charge."

Then again, he'd hadn't asked for a meeting before. Going straight to the general with nothing to trade would have been foolish, but now... maybe there was something he could offer. Now there was something the general wanted.