2019.12.24: Guilty or Not Guilty?
| 24th December 2019: Guilty or Not Guilty? | |
|---|---|
| Part 2: Investigating the site where Roxy was accused of murder creates more problems than it solves. | |
| IC Date | December 24th, 2019 |
| IC Time | Night |
| Players | Roxy, Bobbi, Kadin |
| Location | The Harbor District |
NOTE: This is part two of a longer plot thread. If you haven't read part one you can find it here.
Leaving the library behind, Roxy takes to her motorcyle with Bobbi on the back, the speed demon YZF-R1. If Bobbi had worries about riding before, she'll never ride again after sharing a bike with Roxy. The bike hits a top speed of over 140mph and the rider isn't scared to push it toward those limits, zipping through traffic and dodging her way through traffic congestion, she makes it to the location in record time.
Pulling up to the murder site, it appears to be a typical small scale convenience store; cigarettes, alcohol, snacks, a few home essentials, sandwiches, and so on. That's if the store was still open. Unfortunately, the location now has boards over the windows, a steel grating over the door. The room upstairs fares no better, with wooden boards covering the windows.
An alleyway runs alongside the store with a side entrance for deliveries and access to the room upstairs. Though this is also closed up, it's at least untouched, only a lock barring the way. A standard police blockade has been torn in front of the door, pinned to either side, so the message instead reads, 'Police Li' on one side, 'ne, Do Not', on the other. The rest is completely missing.
With a soft rumble, Roxy pulls the bike up into the alleyway, finding a decent spot where she can roll in and cut the engine, which ends with a soft purr. "Well. Here we are.", she says, glancing over her shoulder at the doorway.
Bobbi spent the entire motorcycle ride gripping on to Roxy for dear life. Once they arrive, she hops off the bike looking pale as a ghost. The only color left on her comes from her tattoos. She is carrying two plastic bags from a grocery store the stopped at along the way. For awhile, she has a thousand-yard stare, reliving the terrifying experience she just went through. At the same time, she made it through that experience, which means she's getting stronger. Maybe some day soon she'll be able to do something like that without powerful sedatives.
The Xanax definitely is effecting Bobbi. Her actions are slowed down. Her speech ever so slightly slurred. "Ok ..." she says, looking around. "... wasn't expecting you to go that fast. I guess it's /my/ turn to fuck with /your/ head." She reaches into her overalls pocket and pulls out her hand with a fist full of something. "Roxy, this is going to be a hell of a lot easier if you take one of these first ..." Bobbi opens her hand and there's an assortment of off-white powders in home-made gel cap pills. "I can probably figure out which is which if you really need me to, but I always prefer the grab bag approach."
Perhaps it was the stop at the grocery store, but the bus rider walks around the corner of the building. No nods to the pair, "Good. See you made it." Kadin looks at the door, "Do you want to go in there?" His attire is just like it was, clean and untorn. His hair, while messy, isn't all tied in knots from flying down the street at a 140 on a fast bike. He just seems just like he was in the library.
"I told you.." Roxy starts, then shakes her head, ".. no, that was Sumter. I probably should have warned you, I'm a speed addict." she chuckles, "No big Harley for me.". With a kick, the stand goes down and she gently eases herself off the bike, running a hand almost lovingly over the fuel tank before she turns to face Bobbi.
"What are those?" she asks, taking a few of the pills, twirling one in her fingers to look it over, perhaps searching for some sort of identifying markings, "I mean, we've found the spot so it's a good time to party, but..". Her words are cut off as Kadin appears into the alleyway, a little smile toward the man, "That was one fast bus. I do intend to go in there. Can you pick a lock?" she asks.
Bobbi looks to Roxy, "Uh, probably some MDA, MDMA, 2CB, Ketamine, 4-ACO-DPT, maybe a winky frog, not really sure which is which, but they're all pretty good. See?" she says as she plucks one of the pills and tosses into her mouth and dry swallows it. "It's good for you." Bobbi looks to Kadin, "You're welcome to one too. Might get us in the same headspace if we all take one, but Roxy here really should take one ..." She looks to Roxy, "This will make this a lot easier for me ..." HINT HINT.
Kadin shakes his head, "No, but I can unlock it from the inside." He smiles a little, "There is a window I can squeeze into on the other side of the building that way we don't leave traces of picking the lock." He looks at the pills, "They won't work on me like you think they might." He motions with his index finger, "Shall I go open the door?"
"You know these fucked my life up already..?" Roxy stares at Bobbi, though there isn't any anger there, just a little sad regret. Her eyes drop to look at the pills, then in they go, swallowed down with a little shiver as they land. "They better at least be a good trip." she chuckles.
Looking back to Kadin, her hand waves him off, "Yes, go go.." she smiles, "Don't get seen, I've already got the police itching to lock me up.". Moving away from her bike, she glances back at it, she really loves that thing, she heads toward the door, closes her eyes, places a hand against it. Her entire being seems to open up to the area, but she shakes her head, "Nothing here.. just the sadness of the homeless.", she sighs, glancing down and to the side of the door, as if she could see a homeless man sleeping in a cardboard box, right there. Perhaps she can.
Bobbi gives a nods, "That's why I didn't offer any of the blue ones. Bill W the founder of alcoholics anonymous actually credits psychedelics with his recovery, they just kind of wrote that part out of the group. I know you're a bit hesitant, but they're clean drugs, they're not addictive, and it's good to have a reset trip every now and again. It'll clear your head and your thinking. I'm not going to lead you astray." Bobbi looks around, "Yeah, we should probably find a way inside."
Kadin says, "Be right back." He goes around the corner. Those that are ultra sensitive that can pick up natual magical abilities might notice a shifting of a reality in a spot around the corner where Kadin goes intangible a moment and then back again as he steps through the wall. He comes around and unlocks the door from the inside and says, "Right this way ladies."
When Kadin has moved away, Roxy turns around, focuses again on Bobbi. "Is it just me, or is he really cute?" she asks. A gentle swirl of color illuminates the alleyway, turning the greys and browns into purples and soft blues. At least to her they do. "Probably just me.", she nods, eyes becoming a little heavy lidded.
The click of the door opening behind her has her turning around again, shaking her head, a little smile to the man opening the door for her. "That was fast, are you a professional thief or just lucky..?" she teases. Leaning forward, she peers in through the door.
Leading three ways, the main corridor heads down into the main store, clear plastic strips covering the entrance; it looks like the store is still stocked, shelves still partially full. Another corridor heads into an open room that contains boxes of all shapes and sizes, all labelled, all items to be moved into the store should the shelves run empty. The last direction leads upwards, a set of stairs that head directly up, then turn 90 degrees and continue to climb to another hallway above the store, currently out of sight.
"Hellooo..? Anyone home?", she calls out, then tilts her head, listening carefully for any movement coming from inside.
Bobbi slowly hobbls into the convenience store and looks around in the darkness. She pulls out a prayer candle, lights it and places it on the counter, allowing for a tiny bit of illumination after the door closes. "I really like getting high and freaking myself out a little. You know, as long as there isn't any real danger. This place seems perfect," she says. Then another candle comes out and gets lit, and then another, and another. One of those grocery bags had been entirely filled with candles, and there are now a half-dozen on the counter. "Feel free to move those around if you think they'd provide better illumination somewhere else, or if you need them to search around for clues." After that she lights a bunch of white sage and starts slowly moving around the space, the sage scrub burning, giving what some fine to be a pleasant smell and others find to be a new age annoyance. "Just gotta make sure we have the right vuh-iiibe." Bobbi gives Roxy a look, of course it's just her.
Kadin looks at the candles but decides just to look around with whatever light there is. Those with light might see that his eyes seem to shine like a cat's eyes but only if caught at the perfect moment. He starts over at the register area.
Hearing nothing, Roxy gives the door a gentle push, closing it quietly behind her. Following Bobbi into the store, she starts walking the aisles while the woman does her thing, looking over the various items left behind. No light flows in from outside due to the boarded up windows, only the candles creating enough light to see with. "Ooh, cookies..", she murmurs, gathering up a pack of chocolate cookies and tearing them open, munching while continuing to walk around. "I'm not feeling anything here. There's a nice sensation, people coming here to keep their homes stocked, a meeting place for friends..", a wistful smile to herself, a shake of her head.
Moving over to Bobbi, she stops nearby, looks at the candle nearby that flickers from blue to white, white to green, green to pink, causing a little giggle at the sight; there was always something about hallucinogens that tickled her. "Are you working your..", a glance to see how close Kadin might be, ".. magic..?", lowering her voice to a whisper.
Bobbi slowly hobbles around the store, sage scrubbing as she goes. Finally making it to the end of an aisle, she wedges the scrub between some metal shelving, letting it burn on it's own. After that she walks back up the aisle, reaching into the bag, shaking her hand, and dropping things in front of her. Whatever it is must be somewhat solid, as the objects clatter loudly when they hit the ground. Bobbi grins at Roxy and shrugs slightly. "I'm going to need both of you to give me a hand in a second. I /could/ do it myself, but with my leg it will be a lot easier if you two just follow my directions," she says. As your near Bobbi, you see her pull another handful of something out of the shopping bag. That something is bones. She has a shopping bag full of bones, and she's dropping them all up-and-down the aisle as if it was nothing. They probably came from the butcher at the grocery store, but given the bones and candles, it soon becomes clear why Bobbi had earlier noted that 'robbing a church and someone losing a pinky' would be necessary if they couldn't come up with $10 for the grocery store.
Bones being scattered about? For some reason, that really doesn't bother Roxy. Perhaps she's seen it before; or worse. Turning around, she places her hands on the counter and pushes, lifting herself up to sit on top. A little wriggle back to get comfortable and she's gathering up the pack of cookies again, taking another to fill that empty feeling in her tummy. "What do you need me to do?" she asks.
"I've been a part of a summoning before.." she notes, keeping her voice down just in case Kadin isn't the awakened type, ".. is this a ritual you're doing? Jeez, what did you give me?" she asks, turning her head and staring up and to the right, as if she can see something floating around above the aisles. "You don't see that, right? I figure you don't see that.".
Bobbi whispers to Roxy, "This is just some hippie bullshit. Everyone knows hippies are full of various bullshit new age beliefs. Candles? Sage scrub? Hippie bullshit. No magick here. This is just the way a hippie deals with potential bad vuh-iibes." She looks around, "I'm going to need one of you to lie on the ground and the other one ..." she pulls out a piece of chalk. "... outlines the body."
Kadin volunteers to lie on the ground, and Bobbi wonders how much he might have heard.
Then Bobbi looks around and notes to Roxy, "I'm seeing a lot of shit, but I also took a few hits of acid back before I got on the motorcycle. I think the pill I took was the winky frog."
There's a slow nod of understanding, and it does seem Roxy actually understands the 'bullshit' show that's going on. "I got you..", she nods, reaching up and brushing a few errant hairs away from her eyes. Reaching out, she gives Bobbi a light tap on the arm, a few more, getting her attention, then points at the bank of chillers that are still happily buzzing away, "Beers.". The chillers are still stocked with a wide variety of alcohol. That can't be forgotten.
Pushing forward, she drops her feet back to the ground, leaving the last of the cookies on the counter. A hand reaches out, takes the chalk from Bobbi and over she goes to Kadin, crouching down alongside so she can start creating the chalk outline. "Does it have to be in the same room her was murdered in?" she asks, "Because there's no blood in here..".
Kadin is chalked and then stands up from the outline to go looking about again. He splays his fingers apart with the index fingers touching each other and then the thumbs as well forming a triangular window that he is gazing through. He blinks his eyes as he looks through his fingers and over at Bobbi, "I can't call...I can only guard." He gives her a small nod, "Just let me know what you need."
As the candles flicker, the sage burns in the back, the bones lie in the aisle, and the Kadin is chalked, Bobbi begins to sing softly to herself in what must be some made up gibberish language that nonetheless sounds like it could comes from angels itself. ... or maybe you know True Enochian and you know exactly what she is saying, and that it definitely is the language of angels ... She places her cane to the side, and begins to slowly move, but she slips. Luckily she manages to just grab onto the counter to catch her balance. "Heh, heh, woops. A little rusty," she says. After that she goes back to singing and slowly begins to start doing some yoga poses. For a girl with a busted leg, she's quite talented and flexible. But it is clear that this is definitely some hippie bullshit going on right now, nothing magickal. Eventually, her yoga poses take her closer and closer to the ground, until finally she is holding a complex yoga pose while inside the chalk outlined body. After holding that pose for five minutes, she eases down into corpse pose on top of the chalk outline.
Bobbi stays there for a moment, eyes closed, relaxed breathing. Finally her eyes flutter open and she puts out a hand. "Little help?" she asks. "Now that I got my mind right, I'm ready to deal with the spooky shit. Let's go find some blood stains."
Taking a step back after finishing the chalk outline, Roxy rests her back against the store counter, quietly watches as Bobbi does her thing. Or at least she tries, there's something bothering her, something dancing around on the side of her vision that no matter how much she tries she can't quite seem to focus on. So annoying.
And before she's even realised it, Bobbi has finished, she didn't even get to see what it was Bobbi was doing; there was some movement, a laying down, but then.. "Oh, right.", she rushes over to help Bobbi back to her feet, reaching over to gather her cane, handing it back so she can steady herself. "Are you alright?" she asks with a kindness, a consideration in her voice, touching a hand to her friends arm. "Blood stains it is. From the pictures I think it was upstairs, I remember seeing a couch just out of frame.".
Kadin says, "Blood. There is a lot of blood about." He points in three different directions, and outside there is more that has been washed. Much of this has been washed." He scrying through his fingers bit looking from Bobbi to Roxi and nodding a little to himself. He says to Bobbi, "Something has chased all the spirits away from this room. It doesn't feel right to me."
Bobbi grips Roxy's arm and slowly raises up and takes her cane. "Oh yeah, fine. I just needed to cleanse this space and myself before I was ready to deal with finding a bunch of blood. Hippies are all about having the right vuh-iibe." Bobbi gives Kadin a look as he starts talking about spirits. It seems, without having said anything about it, that her and Kadin have come out of the broom closet, so to speak. Bobbi then looks to Roxy, "Lead on."
"Yeah. The right vibe.." Roxy says to Bobbi, giving the woman a little grin, a playful nudge. "Let's see what we have upstairs.", she suggests. This could be it, this could be the path to clearing her name.
Being Bobbi's gentle guide, Roxy leads her to the stairs and helps her up the steps into the main living area. A few doors lead off to the left, from first assumption it would be a bathroom, sleeping area, perhaps an office space. To the right, however, there is no wall, no door, at the top of the steps the entire upper area forward and right is a living space with a couch, large TV, kitchen area, comfy chairs, pictures on the walls, a table with a glass container, sweets sat inside.
"That's the couch I remember." Roxy notes, once she reaches the top of the steps, leaving Bobbi behind to step further into the room. Almost immediately she steps on some loose floorboard, perhaps, a creak coming from the ground beneath her. She glances down, the colors of the carpet dance under the effects of the hallucinogen. A soft chuckle, it's all so calm and..
A few steps further and blood covers the entire carpet in front of the television. As if she were being pulled in multiple directions at once, she loses focus, regains it, her vision blurs, comes back into focus. The man is right there, in front of the television; he's jumped to his feet, realising he's not alone. "You have strayed from your path..", comes her voice, ".. you will die tonight. It will be painful, but you will live again.".
The sight changes, spins away from her and into Mica's eyes, staring straight back at Roxy; because it is Roxy, she did this. The man looks down, gathers up a pistol he keeps for these expected moments, for when intruders might attack, but Roxy is on him. A leap, a spinning kick, a foot impacts into his face and stars spin in his vision. It's followed up by a knife strike into his gut, a pull upwards to split open his insides, another kick sends him sprawling to the floor.
But no, it doesn't stop there, Roxy leaps on him, the knife thrusting into the side of his neck, his face, his chest, enough cuts to make him feel the pain, to make him suffer, his screams of pain echo around the room until the final strike that pierces his heart and sends him to his final death.
Rising to her feet, Roxy twirls the knife around in her fingers then slips it back into her jacket. A nod and she turns, runs to the stairs, there's a creak from the floorboards as she goes causing her to glance down.
The past fades and Roxy is back to the present, standing motionless in the middle of the room for a few seconds, before her legs wobble and give out, dropping her to the floor in a slump. "Oh fuck..", she murmurs, closing her eyes as the room spins around her.
Kadin stands in the doorway looking in. He asks, "Hey...are you alright?" He looks to Bobbi to see what she is doing ready to step in and help out.
The color leaves Bobbi's face, and she termbles lightly. She experiences dying ... again. She experiences what leads one to kill, and the act itself. She experiences the realization that her new friend is the killer they had been seeking. Luckily she's taken xanax and winky frog, or this might really fuck with her. Bobbi backs away slowly, hitting a shelf and knocking things to the floor. "Whoah ... whoah ... whoah ..." she says. The paranoia in Bobbi ratchets up. Maybe the conspiracy about the bikers was real. Maybe Roxy had been sent to kill her that night at her apartment, and just couldn't bring herself to do it. Maybe this is where it finally happens now that she knows the truth. " ... hey ... hey ... I'm not going to say anything ..." she says as she raises her hands and cane up. Very slowly she shuffles backwards towards the stairs she came up. Moving as fast as a lame person can move backwards without their cane while trembling in fear in an unfamiliar dark place.
There's certainly no threat from Roxy, she lays on the floor with her eyes closed as the world around her spins, the intensity of the experience having left her shaken and.. she turns quickly onto her side, retches and leaves half her breakfast on the floor.
Her hearing at least is working, the words from Bobbi hitting her, a hand wiping across her mouth as she slowly tries to sit upright and look across at the woman. "Bobbi, I..", shaking her head, so much confusion, ".. it can't be me, I wasn't here. I /wasn't/ /here/.", a sparkle of tears now outlining her clear blue eyes.
"We were south of the city. There was a drugs shipment coming in from Mexico. We were all there. /I/ was there.". And yet the vision says otherwise. Roxy turns away, looking over again at the TV, at the bloodstained carpet, at where she was supposed to have killed this man. "I don't.. understand.", a look up at Bobbi, "Are you /sure/ that worked? Are you certain there's nothing wrong with the..", a glance at Kadin, he seems to have his own talents, ".. with the.. vision.".
Kadin chuckles softly, "You can speak plainly around me." He steps forward to offer his hand to Roxy to help her up off the floor. He hmmms, "Two places at once is a possibility."
"Hey, that's fine with me. Whatever you say," Bobbi says as she keeps backing towards the stairs. "You have an alibi, so that means you didn't do it, right? Probably a long lost twin separated at birth that has nothing to do with you. It'll be a bit more difficult to clear up that it wasn't you, but ... I'm sure you'll manage. heh." She looks to the stairs and puts a hand on the banister, but doesn't yet move down them.
Reaching up, Roxy takes the offered hand from Kadin, gently pulls herself back to her feet. There's still a wobble there, she stumbles to stay upright for a second until she finds her footing. "I don't have a twin, I don't have powerful magic to put me in two places at once, I'm not like you..", looking at Bobbi as she says it, ".. you know what I can do. It was boring, remember? I should be floating your table around the room.", the woman managing a wry smile at the memory from their sleepover.
"I don't know what this is, but it's not me.". Leaving Kadin, but not before looking to him and whispering a soft, "Thank you.", she takes a few steps toward Bobbi, but stops short, crouches down. Pushing down onto the ground there's that creak again from the floorboard.
Bobbi sings softly in that language before, it almost sounds like a lullaby. The magick does nothing, but maybe it does. After all, Roxy isn't trying to kill her.
Kadin says, "A doppleganger?" He is almost lost as he looks between the two women. He then looks down at the creaking floorboard, "Something under there?" He points at the creaking board.
"This was in the vision too.." Roxy murmurs mostly to herself. Reaching over, she pulls back the edge of the carpet to reveal a loose floorboard, a hole drilled through to act as a way to lift it. A quick glance up at Bobbi, then back to the floorboard, then she pulls the board up and away, placing it aside. Inside is a single shoebox, which she lifts out and places in front of her.
"Why do I get the feeling I don't want to open this?" she asks, but opens it all the same. A pile of writable DVD's sit inside, each one has a name written on it; Stacy, Lisa, Hannah, Michelle. Beside the DVD's, a pile of small panties in various colors and designs, varying sizes to fit a female child from eight up to twelve years old.
Pushing the box away from her, she stands and turns her back to it, trying to stifle her anger and disgust.
Bobbi stares at Roxy and the box. She doesn't move, a combination of fear and curiosity keeping her in place.
Taking in a deep breath, Roxy lets it exhale slowly; the box remains on the floor, that doesn't exist, she doesn't want to think about that. Instead, she turns to face Bobbi, "Can you do that vision thing again and follow whoever it was?" she asks. "Can you see where she went or.. I don't know." she sighs.
"Help me Bobbi. You said you'd help me clear my name. Well, it still needs clearing." Roxy lowers her head, stares at the floor at her feet.
Kadin bends down to look at the panties and says softly, "They are not here...they are missing." He looks over at Bobbi, "There is a killing field somewhere. He is preventing them from moving on...or was..still..."
Bobbi looks to Roxy, "And you said you didn't do it ..." she says softly. She keeps looking at Roxy though, and it doesn't feel right. Her surprise, her emotions, they don't square up with someone that was the killer. If she did it, why would she be asking Bobbi to find out information? Maybe someone's fucked her mind or cloned her, or maybe she just really does have an evil twin. After all, Bobbi has an evil twin, or maybe it's that Bobbi is the evil twin, or maybe they're both the evil twin. They still argue over that part. Bobbi starts to sing in that strange language again.
Rocked back by the singing, Roxy struggles to stay standing for a moment, but then seems to zone out of the present as her consciousness travels back into the past.
Standing from the body, Roxy spins the knife around in her fingers and tucks it back into her jacket. Turning, she flees the scene, a creak of a floorboard underfoot causing her to glance down as she heads for the stairs. Perceptions change, twist, she's down to the bottom of the stairs, pushing open the door into the alleyway and stepping out into the darkness.
A little further up the alleyway and she turns around, raises a hand toward a window and mutters in soft tones, turns away again. Standing in place for a few seconds, a woman comes to the window, looks down at Roxy's back, at the jacket, the Devil's Legion logo, and then she's moving again. The alleyway turns left and Roxy follows it, keeps going until she's finally out of sight of whoever was watching.
Her face changes, body grows taller, she's no longer even a she, but a man; short cropped hair, a white shirt, a scar below his right eye, he's fairly handsome but he doesn't seem entirely 'right'. There's something that, even through a vision, causes a faint shudder of revulsion. He looks at the entrance to the alley he just walked through and grins, as if he expects someone to be looking at him. A pause, a few moments pass..
And then he's gone. The vision swirls, the alleyway is left behind, suddenly he's standing in another section of the city, a high rise apartment overlooking a busy city street, below the headlights of vehicles move back and fore at their steady pace, people move along the sidewalk. He chuckles to himself, moves across to a small bar, pours himself a scotch, then sits in an expensive looking black couch. The remote is gathered, button pressed, switching to the news...
Kadin stays there kneeling over the box looking within to try and garner clues. He looks from the cds to the tv and then to the ladies and shakes his head no.
Bobbi is half-zoned out, half in this world, half sharing a mental link with Roxy and not-Roxy. She looks to Roxy, "What do you want to do about this? About him? About ..." she gestures with her head towards the DVDs and panties. "I mean, I don't like the cops, but I feel like they shoud be aware of some of this evidence. Do we bring it to them? Do you hand it to them or do it anonymously? Do we leave it for them here and make them think to find it? I don't know. Does anything look familiar to you in that apartment? Through the windows? Can you pinpoint where he is or do we need to keep watching until he goes outside?" She looks down slightly, "Let me know what you want to do. I'll do my best to help you clear yourself, I trust you and want to help you with this. That's fucked up." All of this is said about what seems to be some new knowledge that Roxy and Bobbi share, even if outwardly there was little other than what was under the floorboard. "I don't know if right now is the best time for you to ride a motorcycle. Could be distracting, especially at the speeds you seem to like."
There are some things you just don't get used to, and visions of other people in far away places is one of them for Roxy. Stumbling back, she reaches out and luckily finds a table nearby, using it to steady her. "I think it's best not to touch anything..", she starts, looking at Kadin and waving him away from the evidence, ".. though, he's already dead, so.." a soft sigh, "I'll call Copeland, he can pick this up. He was the one on the case, the one who has me held to the city.". Now steady, she pushes herself from the table and walks across to Bobbi, offering a gentle smile and a touch against her arm, "I'm sorry. That did kinda freak me out too though." she chuckles. "Who was that, though? I need to sketch it before I forget.", as if the idea just occured to her.
Back to the table, she pulls out a sketchpad and a variety of pencils from her slingbag, places them on the table and starts working on the image she saw in her vision. "Why would he use me? I don't even know who he is..", she mutters. One hand drawing lines on a page, the other reaches in to her jacket pocket and pulls out her mobile phone, placing it on the table next to her. Apparantly, Copeland is on speed dial, as a quick press and it starts ringing. "I don't even know how to.." she sighs, ".. he travelled across the city in a blink. How can you even do that? Oh, Copeland. Yes, it's me."
The phone is gathered up and she walks off to one side to continue her conversation.
"You're asking me who that was? I was going to ask you the same question. Are you sure we shouldn't ..." and then the phone call goes through and Bobbi waits, leaning against her cane. She looks around. The past two weeks have certainly been a rollercoaster ride.
Kadin says, "There is more work to do than to just find the guilty. The dead must pass on in peace lest they become twisted with time. We don't want that to happen." He looks at the ladies, "You can follow your trail, and I will follow mine."
Though she's trying to keep her conversation quiet, Roxy does seem to get irritated while talking, her voice raising. ".. yes, I'm at the murder site! You're not the only one who can investigate..", is one line, then another, ".. if you'd searched the place properly you would have found the fucking thing, it's right there under the carpet..". Another moment of silence while she talks quietly and then that damn investigator annoys her again, ".. I'm trying to do /your/ fucking job, I told you I'm not guilty.", a brief pause then, "Oh fuck off Copeland.", and she hangs up the phone, shoving it back into her jacket pocket.
Back to the table and she continues her sketching, "We should leave soon, they have people on the way..", she says quietly.
Bobbi pulls out her cell phone and fiddles with it for a long time. She takes a picture of the ceiling, and then figures out how to take a picture of the open floor with the panties and DVDs. After that she puts the phone away and nods, "Yeah, we should probably get out of here. Not sure how we're going to get anywhere, but we probably don't want to be here much longer." With that she starts slowly down the stairs.
Kadin stands up and pounds his right fist against the air in front of him. There is a thudding sound just as if someone pounding their fist on a heavy oak door, "Yes. Probably best if you left now." A tilt of his head and then he pounds the air again.
The sketch complete, Roxy gathers up the pad and pencils and returns them to her slingbag, the bag then thrown back up onto her shoulder. "I'll ride, it's fine..", she tells Bobbi, but the thudding from Kadin certainly grabs her attention. "What are you doing?" she asks. "The police are on the way, we're standing in a crime scene.."
Moving closer, she glances down at the shoebox again, shakes her head, doesn't want to think about it. "You need to get out of here.", she says to Kadin.
Kadin continues to pound on the door that is not there. If one is mortal they can feel it now, that space where no mortal likes to look, the dark place one's life tries to hide from, run from. There are those that have masked their fear and accepted their fate, but still the eerie darkness of the realms of the dead is a place no for the faint of heart. It is just an outline at first, not clean straight lines of a door, but a vaporous line that seems to darken in the shape of a door. Kadin looks at Roxy, "I'm going to help the children find peace." As the door continues to take form Kadin says, "You should leave."
A doorway to the realm of the dead. Nope! Roxy wants nothing to do with that, she's been close enough to that door a few times in her short life. Taking a slow step back, the fear is obvious, but she still has enough strength of mind to point down at the shoebox, "Don't touch that..".
But she isn't going to stay around to argue about it, she nods to Kadin, whispers a soft, "Thank you..", then turns and rushes down the stairs to join Bobbi at the exit into the alleyway. "We need to get out of here..", she says, rushing past Bobbi and across to her motorcycle, which waits patiently for her return.
Bobbi looks to Roxy, "You ok to drive? Also ... if they find him at an old murder scene with a bunch of panties and DVDs, hella occult shit going on in the first floor, and whatever he's doing there now? That's not going to be good. ... I mean, there are bones all over the floor ... weird religious candles, some strange burning scent ... I mean, just sage, but what does a cop know? ... plus a new chalk outline on a different floor?"
The door becomes darkness and as Kadin touches it, it draws him into the realm of the dead. As it does so, the door vanishes like it was never there.
"Shit." Roxy mutters, reminded of all the things left behind. "Maybe.. just leave the door ajar? It was kids, or squatters.. homeless weirdo's..?", she shakes her head. There's already the soft wail of a siren in the distance, hard to place how far away considering the way the soft mist upon the city is messing with sight and sound.
Pulling out her keys, she starts the motorcycle, a soft purr of an engine that can certainly turn into a roaring tiger with the flick of a wrist. Moving it around, she pats the seat behind her, "Let's just go..".
"Fuck. Alright, just try to take it easy?" Bobbi says as she slowly gets onto the bike and holds onto Roxy.
Once Bobbi has settled in, Roxy gently accelerates away, swerving a little more than normal, but she keeps her speed down and steadily pulls away from the store and heads back toward Downtown.
Later that evening:
Multimedia Message Received from: Roxy
A video file starts to play, it's set in Roxy's house which looks nice if a bit bare bones. The couch she's sat on looks comfortable enough, at least. "Bobbi! This shit is freaking me out, look at this..". She quickly spins the camera to face her TV which is showing the 'back from break' titles for 'Americas Craziest Car Chases'. "I sit down, turn the TV on and /this/ came on.". A click on the remote has the program continue to play. It doesn't look weird until the titles fade back to continue at number four in the list, a large truck pulling a petrol container behind it, being followed by two police cars, watched from a helicopter above. It was the scene showing in the high rise apartment, when the man switched on the news. At the time it was news, a month later and it's being used for entertainment.
"What the fuck, Bobbi? This can't be coincidence.", Roxy speaks over the voice coming from the TV, but it settles back in again with a police chief describing the scene. ".. we had two cars on this juggernaut, highly trained police officers inside who knew exactly what they were doing. But what they could do, in this case, was nothing. If we were to try and stop the truck it's possible the contents of the container could explode, or the vehicle could plough into pedestrians. Unnecessary deaths were inevitable. We just had to wait it out until a more appropriate time..".
"He's fucking with us, Bobbi. What the hell is this?!" she asks, spinning the camera around to face her. "Not only that! Oh fuck no..", she looks so stressed and anxious, ".. that's not all, but this was the very moment I sat down with a police report on the man we saw. I bit the bullet and sent the picture to Copeland, and he sent me this back.". The camera pans to an official police document sitting next to her on the couch.
The address on the document doesn't match the high rise apartment, in fact, the man lives in a run down area not far from Styx & Stones and most certainly doesn't have the money to afford something that flashy. His police record consists of some minor activities; theft, breaking & entry, possession of a deadly weapon. The more recent involves violence, arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, though he was released claiming self defense.
"So who the fuck is that in the high rise?" Roxy asks, spinning the camera back to her. "We need to meet, this is getting crazy. Call me.". And with that, the message ends.
