firewatcher | [psl] 2015: I've been worrying I will become what I deserve

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[psl] 2015: I've been worrying I will become what I deserve

Palmer scrolled through the contacts list on her phone, finally finding the right one. A small, morbid smile sprang to her lips. She'd spoken to the owner of this number earlier tonight--like every night--but it had been a while since she'd last made a social call. What a reason to get back in touch.

Like old times, really, except not really at all.

She glanced back into the dining room. Amity still seemed to be sitting tight—not that she had any way of not doing that, being handcuffed to the chair, ha fucking ha, but at least she was eating, now. Well. For a given value of "eating."

Christ in heaven, this was her life, now.

Well, she already committed to this. No reason to hesitate. She hit the call button.

"Hi, Danielle," she said, not even bothering to disguise the weariness in her voice. "It's me."

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"I can't exactly erase his memory," Danielle replied. Nor would she, for that matter. The Ventrue art always unsettled her. A lot. She never said anything about it, but her skin always crawled a little when she saw one of the Coles at work.

Deep breath. In and out.

"If we play this carefully, he'll never know I was here," she continued. She was a Mekhet, after all. She had a few tricks of her own. "And if I stand behind him and gauge his aura, I can get a pretty good sense of whether he's lying or telling the truth."

She paused. "They may well ask me to do that tomorrow. Which would be lucky. We won't be as lucky if they ask the Spymaster."

"Right, yeah. Use your best judgment, then—you're the expert." Palmer shrugged. "Thumbs up for 'true', thumbs down for 'false,' stand back far enough that he can't tell you're here, I guess. Or that you in particular are here. And, well—the Spymaster would have to know to ask the right questions."

She rolled up her sleeves. "Anyway, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. This one—this one's a lot easier. Oh, and grab a stake—" She gestured to a pile on a table. "We might need it. Now, though, time for this guy to wake up."

Visions of a hot bath danced in Danielle's head as she rolled up the grimy sleeve of her button-down, reaching up to slash her wrist against a jagged nail coming out from the bottom of a step. It was easier--and less painful--to use her teeth. But she'd never once let her face change in front of Palmer. And she wasn't about to start tonight.

She walked up behind the Gangrel, pressing her wrist into his mouth, forcing her blood down his throat. It would wake him up. And probably renew his sense of will, for a little while. But Palmer would beat that out of him.

Once she was sure she'd given him enough, she stepped back, falling into the shadow of the stairs. She willed her wrist to heal. And decided first thing tomorrow night, she'd have to get something to eat.

But she'd worry about that later.

Game face on. Palmer drew a knife in one hand and got in the guy's face for when he woke up—he was already stirring as Danielle hurried back to the shadows.

When he came to, he pulled back in alarm for a moment, and then snapped forward, fangs bared—she didn't flinch as he came within inches of her face, and instead pulled one hand back to slap him across the face. "Right. Don't do that again," she said, standing up from her half-crouch and passing the knife between her hands with an elegant twirl.

She started to pace back and forth in front of him. "I hope that you can appreciate that you're in a lot of trouble. I'm going to need you to answer some questions for me, in return for all the trouble you've caused me. If I'm satisfied with how helpful you've been, you might get to see another sunset." She stopped her pacing, abruptly, turning to face him. "Do I make myself clear?"

He appeared to have finally become aware of his surroundings, a look of horror dawning on his face. "Oh, shit," he said, finally.

Palmer nodded. "That's right. Now: what's your name? Answer honestly; I'll know if you're lying. Liars lose bits of their appendages."

The vampire's eyebrows knitted together. "Barclay Wallace," he said.

Danielle had to keep from scoffing. She'd have known that for a lie, even without auspex. She'd met Barclay Wallace, dealt with him and his messes more than once during her tenure as Deputy.

Also, she knew he was dead.

She shook her head, giving Palmer a thumbs down. She even rolled her eyes a little.

Palmer scoffed, and fixed the guy with a withering stare. "Wrong answer," she said, and with a swift motion cut off the top of his right ear in a jagged diagonal line, eliciting a yelp of pain and a brief spray of blood that ran slick down his neck. "I go for the eyes next. What's your name?"

"Jones!" he said, very quickly, in-between vestigial gasps. "Uriel Jones."

She didn't even need to look at Danielle for that one—that was clearly true. This wasn't her first interrogation. "Thank you," she said. "That's much better. Now. What gave you the damn fool idea to vampire my daughter. Two to four sentences, please, no essays."

"You killed my sire!" Jones burst out. "Barclay Wallace was my sire. Besides, it's an embarrassment how long you ki—mortals," he corrected his word choice, at Palmer's narrowed eyes, "have been a thorn in the side of this city's Kindred. The King would reward anyone who dealt with you handsomely."

Palmer raised an eyebrow, and frowned deeply. "Really. Did he tell you that?"

Jones looked off to the side. "No..."

Danielle winced visibly at the ear. Not so much because she didn't think he deserved it--he deserved it. Mostly, just because she knew what it felt like to lose an ear.

And it stung.

She watched as Palmer continued with Jones, nodding slightly with a thumbs up as he told the truth. This guy was only a few steps away from pissing blood.

"Please, please," Jones whimpered "I could have killed her. But I didn't. She's still alive. You don't have to do this."

But yes. Yes, Palmer did need to do this.

"No, you just let her loose to go home and try and kill me, how magnanimous." Palmer stomped on one of Jones's feet as hard as she could, hard enough to break toes, and he hissed in pain. "And, buddy, for a dead guy, you've got some real funny ideas about what it means to be alive. It ain't just being able to walk around."

She straightened, abruptly, and crossed her arms, sighing. "Am I going to have to watch out for any more of you idiots? Any accomplices? Anyone told you to do this, suggested this to you?"

He stared at his knees. "No. It was just me."

It was the truth. Which was kind of pathetic. The Kindred were unique in that they were predators, so they didn't trust each other, but they needed each other. They needed community and they needed...well...they were called 'kindred' for a reason.

Danielle gave the thumbs up, nodding warily.

The beginnings of the sunrise were pricking at her conscious.

Jones, meanwhile, was whining like a dog. "Please don't kill me-e-e-e."

Palmer looked down her nose at him with disdain. "Honestly," she said, "I'd love to see you come up with a reason I shouldn't. You have, apparently, heard of me, which means that you have also heard of my reputation for a distinct lack of mercy."

She let out a quick bark of laughter as an idea came to mind. "Hah, well, if you happened to know who killed the Volkovs, now that'd be a good one. I might actually find it in my heart to let you live for that." Crouching down to his height, she looked him in the eye. "Don't suppose you know anything about that, son."

He raised his head, surprised. "The Volkovs?" And then lowered it slightly, taking the posture of a conspirator. "I did hear something about that, a while ago. No one's taken public credit for it, of course, but I have it on very good authority that it was the Sheriff, Daniel Buckley."

It was rare, these days, that Danielle Remington laughed. But she found herself shoving her fist into her mouth to keep herself from letting loose with a wild chuckle.

Oh, this guy was so dead. He was in way over his head and he was dead. And as sad as that might be (at least the wasted potential), at least he was going out on the most ridiculous lie possible.

The only thing that would have been funnier would have been blaming Shawn, for crying out loud.

"And that Deputy of his," Jones continued.

...Danielle stood corrected. That was the most ridiculous lie possible.

There was a distinctly pregnant pause before Maria began to laugh. Uproariously. In the stark silence of the basement room, it echoed hollowly. "That—" she said, between teary, gasping laughs, "is the best one I've ever heard. I'm impressed." She sank to her knees on the concrete floor to catch her breath.

When she was done, she picked herself back up, and grinned lopsidedly down at Jones. "No, but really, that was terrible. Woulda been better if you'd just said you didn't know. Remember what I said about liars?"

The last thing Uriel Jones knew before the sunrise mercifully put his consciousness to bed was the sharp, searing pain of a knife carving a second smile into his throat.

"Well," said Palmer, looking over at Danielle, "this is officially real dumb."

Well, Danielle was glad Palmer thought it was funny. Frankly, she was prepared to feel a little insulted. Generally, she wasn't even important enough to accuse of doing shit. Most of the time, she was just ignored. Seen by not heard. That this was the one time someone thought of her was a little irritating.

But what could she do?

Willing herself to stay awake, she stepped out from under the stairs, giving Uriel a good glare as she walked past him.

"Most Gangrel I've met aren't exactly known for their brains...Buckley aside, of course."

"Yeah, honestly, this is frankly embarrassing. I knew I should have insisted that Amity keep up more with the self-defense." It was kind of a glib statement to make, but it was either that or have a nervous breakdown, and Palmer was pretty sure she'd rather not.

She prodded the luckless Jones with her boot. "Well, I don't know how long you can stay up—I can put you up on the couch here, or in the other bed in the darkroom, if you need to have a lie-down. I can handle cleanup. Have a bunch of other things I ought to do today, anyway. Like call in sick to work."

Danielle shook her head. "I can manage. If you want, I can sit up with Amity. Watch over her for a few hours."

She knew Palmer was going to object to that, so she raced on as quickly as she could. "Look, I'm not going to argue with you or try to talk you out of this or anything. But if you're going to do it, at least do it smart. You need to get some sleep. At least five hours. I'll settle for four. Tonight is going to be a very, very long night."

Palmer was indeed about to protest, but interrupted herself with a yawn. She had been up all night, there was no denying that—one of her odd late shifts coupled with coming home to this mess. "I... ugh, you're probably right. Seriously, though, don't let me sleep more than four hours. I want to be functional, but I have a hell of a lot to do."

She almost ran a hand through her hair, but then realized she had not a small amount of blood on her hand, now, and grimaced. "Well, maybe I'll wash up real quick, too. After I take care of this guy."

To say Danielle was surprised she'd actually won the argument was something of an understatement. To say she was pleased was more so.

Well, no. No. Not pleased. Because this was pretty much one of the worst case scenarios her mind could possibly come up with. But there was a chance, a sliver-of-the-moon chance that they could work it out. She'd made it this far as a vampire. Maybe Amity could do the same. At least she'd have the benefit of role models who weren't psycho Invictus spies, anyway.

"Okay," she sighed. "You shower. Once you're in bed, I'll set an alarm. After you've had four hours, I'll call to wake you. And I'll stay with Amity the entire time."

Palmer grabbed the bottom of the chair with both hands, Jones still strapped to it, and hefted it. "Yeah," she said, quietly. "Sounds good." She smiled, wearily. "I'm going to go upstairs and take this guy for a little... visit to the backyard while the sun's coming up; I'll close the blinds on the way back so that you can actually go upstairs."

She stopped on the first step of the staircase, and turned her head to look back at Danielle. "And..." She paused for one long moment, her face serious. "Danielle. Thanks."

This time, Danielle actually let her surprise show. What had Palmer expected of her? The mind boggled. Probably not a good intellectual path to try to stumble down.

So she shrugged, trying to shrug off the words and the tone. "It's family business," she said.

Which seemed to say it all.

Palmer's mouth twitched at one end, slightly—but then she nodded again, without saying another word, and continued up the stairs, toward the dawn.

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[psl] 2015: I've been worrying I will become what I deserve

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