Dmitri

Afro Daddy

(Ear to da streets! [Cha+Streetwise])

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 6 )

Afro Daddy

(Ya don't say? Tell me more)

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Afro Daddy

(Aw, c'mon. You know you wanna tell me)

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )

Twilight

So Afro Daddy spends a few weeks working his sources, those barely-useful eyes and ears. The low-level runners and the street-level dealers and the old-hat prostitutes and the junkies who aren't so far gone they don't know who's asking them questions and who's paying for their next fix.

This church, right? The Citadel - that juvie camp - has maybe 20 kids. Block grant, yadda, information gleamed from Sam Evans or maybe just the goddamned google. 20 kids funded by a block grant for a non-violent offender diversion program. Just the summer: the great outdoors, away from the streets, a healthy atmosphere. You can imagine it right? Red Rover and fishing and hiking. Bonfires and smores. Color wars maybe, with an added bolus of anti-drug rhetoric and woodworking instruction: something with-the-hands. Something useful, something that won't challenge any sort of status quo.

Staffed entirely - get this you fucker - entirely by ex-offenders. By parolees. By ex (or "ex") gang members. Not members of one particular gang, though. Folks who came through the system, got released from prison on parole, got funneled in to this half-way house from hell and came out with religion. With Religion, really, all firebreathing and armor and end-times, that sort of old-time religion. All Apocalypse.

Those gang members: yeah. From every damned city neighborhood. Fucking ex-Aryan Brotherhood bastards next to ex-41st Street Locos next to ex-Tre Tre Crips. 'Cept, the way the talk is those folks keep in touch, at least with their old weapons dealers.

That's the rumor, anyway.

--

So, these 'reformed' gang members are the counselors and the cooks and the guards and the therapists and the lifeguards at The Citadel, where despite the government funding, the religious theme is hit hard-and-often. Least according to a friend of a friend of someone incarcerated there.

Incarcerated? Housed. Diverted from the system with a promise that the conviction will be erased entirely from their record once the program is completed.

--

And then: Dmitri Halloran.

He's sixteen. Arrested for possession, but has no other criminal history. A reasonable student, that's what his eyes and ears say. Managed to stay out of trouble and out of obligations. Good kid. Quiet. Bookish enough that he was more-or-less left alone. Smokes pot maybe, he's fucking sixteen and this is Colorado.

Now there's a warrant for his arrest for assault and evading custody, issued on June 27, 2013.

Afro Daddy teases out a couple of next-step options:

- tracks down Dmitri Halloran's mother.- his ex-girlfriend. - and/or - a kid named Warren McComber. Who was sent to The Citadel but was released early, for reasons that are unclear.

Afro Daddy

Well wasn't this citadel a project after his own heart. And that was probably the problem. he could see the potential in the project, for both good and bad, and he wasn't the one pulling the strings. not in this case, anyway. Not that he probably could, it being tied in so close to the corectional system. But a few enterprising kinfolk maybe...

And yet, Dmitri had escaped, and the reaction to his escape felt all wrong. All wrong was also how Sam Evans described some of the folks that had come out of that church. All wrong was how it felt. Here was an emperor of the city...and fresh land for conquest. it was enough to get his mouth watering.

But first, the little lost lamb. He decides to check with this Warren kid, find out more about the place. He also decides he might need some extra legs on this one. Where was it that 'Dances with the Hurricane' chick was patrolling again? Better swing by there before Heading over to Warren, see if she wanted to tag along.

Hurricane

Everywhere, and nowhere, that is where that Dances With the Hurricane chick patrols. She's a bit of a drifter that one, has been since last year when she cut a few ties and found herself adrift. She liked that, being adrift.

But all good things must come to an end, and so it is with Ingrid. She has not left the city since the attack on Cold Crescent some weeks ago. Her base of operations is a hotel downtown, at least until preparations can be made for a more permanent residence here, and though she ranges all over the places, popping in and out of shadows like a shadow herself, it's somewhere in the city that Afro Daddy finds her. Accident? Or fate?

And don't they look like two disparate pieces. Ingrid is average in height, slender in build, and somewhat aloof in appearance. He finds her and he fills her in, and while she's ambivalent toward children, that he is interested is of interest to her. So, with a sly curl of her lips, she agreed to come along with him to talk to this Warren, for all the good it might do him. Her presence is an uncanny one. Though she's graceful, elegant, poised in a long green maxi dress with thin straps and a neck that scoops just low enough to expose a hint of ink, there is something inherently different about her. She is an animal just beneath the surface of her skin, wild and untamed and predatory.

Where the tall Philodox goes tonight, a slight dark shadow follows just behind and a little to the side.

Twilight

That kid - Warren McComber - lives in the Quigg Newton homes, a low-rise Section 8 development operated by the City of Denver Housing Authority. Town homes, spread out over tree-lined blocks, with the usual signs of gang activity and neglect. Patrolled by a handful of rent-a-cops and pint-sized rent-a-cop lookouts. Haunted by an aura of neglect or abandonment that even the leafy canopy cannot really banish.

Afro Daddy knows a guy who knows a chick who knows a junkie who hangs out routine on a park bench near the busstop in front of the central courtyard and that junkie knows the kid and the kid lives in Apartment 3. Always was a bit of a fucking rabblerouser but since he came up out of that place he hardly ever leaves his grandmother's town home. Just sits sometimes, barely visible in one of the upstairs windows, staring out over the courtyard. Or disappearing behind the curtains of Unit 27-G.

Afro Daddy

Then that is where they are headed. Quigg Newton homes. In some ways he was still new to this city. In some ways, though, this city was the same as any city he'd ever been in. It didn't sound like any of the citadel's teaching programs did much for Warren, if he just came back and shut himself away. It sounded like he was about as non-violent and reformed as lobotomized junkie. Which means, maybe, he knows what Dmitri escaped from, and where he might have gone.

"We're goin up here." Tommy says to Ingrid as they ascend the stairs (best not to try the elevators in these buildings. That'll get ya nowhere fast. "We're gonna go talk to this kid. But maybe you should let me do the talking. You keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

Hurricane

Ingrid hasn't been keeping up on this case, the case of the strange church with its strange habits and programs and unprecedented population growth. Afro Daddy knows where they're going they get there, somehow, not likely in Ingrid's car. To small and sleek and in it's own way flashy. It stands out and would draw attention. Not to mention what harm might befall it in this neighborhood. Not that Ingrid worries about things like that. If the car disappears - on this street or any other in this city - she'll find it. If she finds it stripped, she'll find the ones who stripped it.

It's the Fostern's call here, because this is his venture and, well, because he's a Fostern and Ingrid honors rank.

We're goin' up here says Tommy, and Ingrid tips her chin to look at him levelly before, without a word, she slips ahead of him, taking point. She doesn't expect to run into trouble here, but even so she is a scout. So, up the stairs she goes, footsteps quiet, taking in the smells more than she takes in the sights. When he suggests that he should do the talking, Ingrid casts a glance at him back over her shoulder. In her quarter profile he can see the curve of her smile. Not talking, obviously, is just fine by her.

Up the stairs they go, Ingrid with her skirt gathered to the side in one hand so it makes nary a whisper as she moves, and leaves not a trace of her presence behind.

Hurricane

[percept+alert (scents): sniff sniff]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 4 )

Twilight

The stairwell smells of: urine; marijuana, and crack. It smells of old diapers and slightly rotten food. It smells a bit of mold. In short: it smells. Otherwise, nothing particularly stands out in the stairwell, though Ingrid is aware of eyes everywhere. The lookouts, the neighbors, the people with nothing to do but gossip the day away until the next disability check comes in.

Twilight

Whatever he was or is or will be: this is where he is now. Behind the door of a dull and rather scratched interior door in the project. Unit 27-G, Apartment 3. There is graffiti and a strange sound of water drip drip dripping in the stairwells and a solid door from which the unit and apartment numbers have been largely peeled away. What is left is scarred wood.

They: knock. The door rattles. In its frame and on its hinges and behind the door the sound of a television turned up too loud and the sound of a scramble. Someone lunging for the remote, someone rising from the couch. Someone moving.

Someone watching fucking Judge Judy, though the television is turned off as soon as the knock is heard. As if the sudden cessation of noise might be enough to convince you that no one was ever there in the first place.

It takes another series of solid knocks, louder and more rattling before the door opens. And when it opens it opens no more than a crack. There's a chain lock secured at about chin level, visible, brassy and dull in the interspace between door and frame.

The suggestion of an eye in the framed space. Greenish brown. The curve of a young face, probably a boy but still boyish enough to be cleanshaven or incapable of growing much scruff. Caramel skin and close-cropped brownish-red hair. Immediately wary.

"Yeah?"

Voice pitched lower than you might think.

The apartment smells like fear and burned Kraft Mac'n'Cheese.

Twilight

The stairwell smells of: urine; marijuana, and crack. It smells of old diapers and slightly rotten food. It smells a bit of mold. In short: it smells. Otherwise, nothing particularly stands out in the stairwell, though Ingrid is aware of eyes everywhere. The lookouts, the neighbors, the people with nothing to do but gossip the day away until the next disability check comes in.

Afro Daddy

"Hey." says the smiling wolf man with the halo of black, puffed hair. He lounges is gangly limbs over the door, leaning against one side and his arm arcing up over his head. The other rests idly on his hip.

"You're Warren, right? Cool, man. How you doin?"

The tone and that smile sounded like a cross between a guidance councilor and a salesman, possibly the types of salesmen that Warren might have known.

"I'm Tommy. Tommy C. Maybe you heard'a'me?"

Maybe he had. It was worth a shot. Depending on which gang he was associated with (and its true, if you lived in places like this and you looked like him, you were associated whether you liked it or not.) Tommy C was either a man you went to to get things done, or the last muthafucka you wanted to mess with. Sometimes both.

"Listen, I wanna talk to you about somethin'. Why don't you invite me in?"

Afro Daddy

(cha+streetwise)

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 7, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Hurricane

Tommy stands in front of the door, Ingrid stands to the side of it, back to the wall and her gaze facing out over the hallway. At the other doors open just a crack, or the places where she hears a shuffle against a door that means someone's trying to listen in.

The kid answers the door, or at least it's probably the kid they came to see, and Tommy talks.

Twilight

"I don't need no fucking religion." The kid returns, his eye narrowing behind that slivered view of the apartment, something hardening in the shadow of his cheek. Some pull of a tendon, some snap of awareness or sharply edged fear. That survey cuts down the narrow opening in the door and then the boy's gaze returns to Tommy, the slice of his face, that guidance counselor / salesman smile.

The door closes then, with more force than it requires though not enough to buffet the pair beyond it. There is a pause, which is not quite pregnant but is longer than either of them would prefer. Then, the rattle of a chain coming undone.

The kid opens the door and gives Tommy a sulky look that slips behind the Fostern to the Ragabash beyond. Starts his survey at Ingrid's foot but adolescent male hormones are not enough to overcome that shivering aura she gives off: of being a predator, an animal, inhuman.

The kid steps back; gaze swinging from Ingrid to Tommy, into a sparsely furnished living room decorated only with religious iconography and commemorative plates. The kitchen is open to the living room and there's a scuttle of cockroaches shivering back to their hiding places as the shadows shift and move. TV, not even a flat-screen, is now off.

"Hell do you want?" He looks ready to bolt, and that pugnaciousness feels put on, papered over as he: Shivers, visibly.

Twilight

WP - phobia

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

Afro Daddy

There's no response to the kid's outburst. Not verbally at least. Just the tightening of jaws that, to every child that age with any kind of parent says 'I know you're not talking to me like that.' The door closes and Tommy sighs. Was he gonna have to take his belt off? No, the chain rattles and the door opens wide, and Tommy takes it as an invitation to step inside. He notes the decor, somewhat typical of...

"Your grandma's out?"

He notes the roaches and for a flash his mind thinks 'hello, cousins.' But he also thinks 'what are you guys doing out right now?' Grandma would never allow that.

"Nevermind. Don't answer that."

Not yet, anyway.

"You got outta citadel. Seems like you got out the long way. You hear about anybody checkin out early?"

Hurricane

The boy looks around Tommy and sees a woman standing there. He starts to check her out and in doing so starts one of Ingrid's favorite games. You see, it doesn't matter how pretty she is, how well shaped her body, or how nicely she dresses. She triggers something in people, an instinct that tells them they'll either have to attack first or be attacked by this slight foreigner. If she were wearing a shorter skirt she might wager to herself that his eyes make it to her shins, but she's not. He sees the hem of her skirt draped so that only the toe of a boot is visible and the kid looks away.

On the other side of Tommy, Ingrid smiles a secretive smile.

With the door open, Tommy steps in and his shadow follows after. One might expect that, given her appearance and her attitude, Ingrid's nose would scrunch at the sight of this place, that she would grimace or maybe even make some sort of noise at the sight of cockroaches.

She doesn't, though. She steps in and she peers around, dark eyes taking in everything. Nose taking in everything. Crossing her arms beneath her smallish breasts, her gaze returns to the kid and it stays there. She watches him with a kind of animal's curiosity, head tilted a little, eyes blinking a little less often than one might find natural. She's studying the kid who don't need no fucking religion, who shivers in their presence.

"It would be unwise to lie," says she, voice low and quiet.

Twilight

"She at church," the boy returns, and the response is automatic and has that feel. Like Where's your grandma? is just one of those questions that gets answered, and more-or-less truthfully. Any damned invocation of the woman or her station requires at least that degree of respect, doesn't it? The answer comes at virtually the same time that Tommy tells him not to answer that.

But then his eyes narrow and see, the kid's taller than he seemed framed in the door. He's maybe 5'11" or so and still growing, but skinny and stretched out looking, the way adolescents get when they are putting on inches, and he has that near-baby face beneath his close-shorn hair.

He cuts a suspicious glance at Ingrid, mouth tucked into an edgy frown as he glances between them, which strays to Tommy but then cuts back past his shoulder to Ingrid as she tells him that it would be unwise to lie.

Warren shivers.

Visibly.

Doesn't notice but he shivers and he's backing again and licking his lips and cutting a glance from one to the other but always back to Ingrid, never long away from Ingrid, refusing to show her his back.

"Wasn't even s'posed to be there. They mixed up the fucking paperwork I am free and clear legal-like. I ain't goin' back there. You creepy religious fucks can't make me."

Afro Daddy

"I look like the religious type to you, boy?"

There was a finality to that sentence, that word 'boy' sounds more like a foot stomp than a word. Tommy glances over his shoulder at Ingrid, then at the shivering kid. What was that? Was that fear or something else? Well, lets start by eliminating what we know.

"Step outside" he says over his shoulder, and to Darren he raises his hands up in a non-threatening gesture.

"Now nobody's tryin to take you anywhere. We got people on the case. We're lookin to shut that fucker down, you understand me? Now you know me. I'm one of you. I'm just tryin to look out for our people. Now they got somebody out there and they're lookin for him, and we gotta find him first to keep him safe you understand?

"So I'm gonna ask you some questions Darren. And what that lady said? She's right. I'm gonna know if you lie to me, son. I'm gonna know. So I want you to tell me the truth. Do you know Dmitri?"

[Truth of Gaia activated]

Afro Daddy

[Truth of Gaia (int+emp) diff Daren's Manip+sub]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

Hurricane

The boy looks at her and he shivers a little more, scared maybe? Of Ingrid? Quite possibly. She's dangerous without trying, he can feel it on an instinctive level.

There's a reason Ingrid doesn't spend time among humans. There's a reason she doesn't spend time with Kinfolk. There's a reason only Garou are ever worth her time.

But then she's being sent away. Tommy tells her to step outside, and Ingrid's gaze lifts to his face, her own expressionless. That gaze drops to the boy again, and then, without a word, without barely even a sound of footsteps crossing whatever passes for flooring in this place, the Ragabash steps back out into the hallway.

The door closes quietly behind her.

Twilight

"Shit can't tell 'em by the way they look." The kid - well, mutters. Yes, mutters, rather stonily and beneath his breath. He is still keeping his distance from the pair of them, and has that eye on Ingrid until she steps far enough out of his awareness that he isn't being shaken by that predatory aura she carries around with him. "S'the way they feel man."

This is still muttered, but less stonily. There's truth here. The disturbing sort of truth, the sort that crawls underneath your skin and turns foul and ugly, turns sick. "Not just like they gonna fuck you up, you know. But like her, man.

"Like they gon' eat you."

--

A snapping look, from the closed door to Tommy and back again. Still wary. The kid looks skeptical when Tommy assures him that there are people on the case. People figuring this shit out, but that skepticism skims into something sharper and warier with the question:

Do you know Dmitri?

"Shit, he dead."

The autonomic response. It is speculation - enough that it tugs on the gift, though faintly - but the kid believes that to be true so there's no outright falsehood. "They say he fucking run away? Escaped? He got asthma. Needs inhalers and shit. Way out in the middle of nowhere the fuck's he gonna go? Bunch a fuckin' liars.

"His moms is one'a them Jehovah Witnesses so he wouldn't go to the fucking vespers. Said that shit was of the devil and fuck if he wasn't right. S'what my grams says, too."

Afro Daddy

"Mm-hm." He says, mulling this over. What if he did. Where you think he would go? There's gotta be somewhere. C'mon, where would you go if you got away?"

Twilight

"Me, I'd call one of my boys and have him drag his ass out to the boonies and pick me up. Go over and hideout at my auntie's 'til the coast was clear," the kid - well, he's feeling easier now, with Ingrid out of the room. He's maybe a little bit boastful, even. He has boys he could demand that they drag themselves out to the middle of nowhere to effectuate a rescue. Except: he's also hiding out in his grandmother's Section 8 apartment scared of religious sorts. So.

" - but Dmitri, man. He didn't have fucking noone. Not like that. Shit, you know how everyone's always like 'not my dope' when they get collared? I'd believe it if Dmitri said 'not my dope.'

"There's fences and shit all around that place. How the fuck's he s'posed to climb 'em? You do shit wrong they put you in solitary.

"But fuck. Maybe if he got away - there's this hike, man. Goes past this old cemetery and this old fucking, house or something, all falling apart. I mean, maybe he'd go hide there? Spend some time before trying to cut over to the interstate and hitching a ride back to the city?"

Twilight

WP for second trip to hospital!

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 3, 7, 7, 7) ( fail )

Afro Daddy

Finally, he got what he wanted. It was a long shot, but it was a shot. Tommy went into his pocket, pulling out a roll of bills and peeling off a couple hundred. He leaves them under a lamp near the door as he heads out.

"Thanks Daren. That's for your trouble. Wash up before your grandma comes back. She don't need no extra stress. And if you need anything, you come lookin for me, alright?"

But he didn't wait for an answer before closing the door behind him. To Ingrid he simply says.

"I got us a place to start lookin. We're goin on a little trip."