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Post by Jordanna on Jan 16, 2006 22:10:29 GMT -5
Joey nodded absently, not quite sure what a "grimalkin" was. He was also thinking of his father.
They had reached the end of the west tunnel. On the wall where it dead-ended, there was a simple ladder leading upward. Joey clambered up it like a monkey, then reached up with one hand to unlatch the trapdoor above. He pushed it open, then looked down at Daws. "This way."
With that, Joey hauled himself up through the trapdoor. He turned to watch Daws climb the ladder, then gave her a hand to help her up. They had emerged into an old warehouse owned by Tiernan Enterprises--cliched, but effective for Nocturne's purposes.
"I'll go on with you to St. Patrick's," Joey said. "Or at least out of this neighborhood. There's kind of a mutant shanty town around here, but they're not too nice. We call them spooks. They'd be happy enough to take handouts from the Boss, but they don't want to work jobs or straighten up their lives, so he leaves 'em alone. They don't like anybody--mutant or not."
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Post by skybright on Jan 16, 2006 22:49:41 GMT -5
"I appreciate that, kid." She could generally hold her own in a fight, but she wouldn't mind the company.
That reminded Daws of something. Her hand darted to the shoulder holster beneath her trenchcoat and she was reassured to discover that "sweetie" -- her S&W model 67 -- was still there. She was willing to bet it'd been unloaded, though -- Tiernan wasn't stupid. An empty gun wasn't much use in a tough neighborhood.
Besides which, Daws liked the kid and welcomed the chance to talk with him.
"You born in the City, Ricochet?"
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 16, 2006 23:12:37 GMT -5
"Brooklyn," Joey said. "You've probably heard the story before. Kid goes mutie, dad walks out, an' mom... gets desperate. So I left." He grimaced. "If it wasn't for Miss Pink and the Boss, somebody like the spooks or those anti-mutant punks around town woulda ground me into hamburger a long time ago."
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Post by skybright on Jan 16, 2006 23:34:12 GMT -5
"Sounds a lot like me." Daws replied, as they left the warehouse for a grimy slum neighborhood with long stretches of shadow between broken streetlights.
" My stepmother barely stood me when I wasn't furry. I don't know what I would've ended up doing, after I turned -- if it hadn't been for Jack.
"He was a private eye. Took me in, taught me the job." Daws glanced up at one of the darkened streetlights -- Jack's mutation had caused such lights to go out when he approached, a fact she'd always delighted in teasing him about. "If it hadn't been for him . . . well." She shrugged. "I miss him."
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 17, 2006 0:20:51 GMT -5
"I guess it sounds weird, but... I still miss my dad," Joey admitted, staring down at his hands as he rubbed them together thoughtfully. "Even though he left, he was a good dad, before. He's the one who taught me to play basketball. I remember--"
His words--and his stride--were both halted by Daws' arm suddenly thrown in front of his chest. He froze and looked at the detective, but she was staring into the shadows of an alley. Joey couldn't see anything, but as he peered into the dark and listened, he could hear movement and muttering voices.
A quartet of raggedy figures emerged from the alley. Two were reasonably normal-looking; one was huge and shaggy and had tusks (one of which was broken), and the fourth was a bald-headed gargoyle figure with slate-gray skin and red eyes. They were clearly not a welcoming committee.
"Spooks," Joey murmured, squaring his shoulders.
One of the more "normal" pair, who was leaner and looked slightly more intelligent than the other, stepped forward. "Hey, scarecrow-boy. Your boss ain't set up one of his soup kitchens down here in a while. We're gettin' hungry."
"I'll tell him," Joey said flatly, and glancing at Daws, he turned to walk on.
"Yeah, you tell him." The spook advanced on them. "You tell him we'll let his kitty cat go when we get what we want!"
With that, he reached out to seize Daws, as the other spooks closed in.
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Post by skybright on Jan 17, 2006 0:38:40 GMT -5
"Oh, today just keeps getting better." Daws scowled, extending her claws. "Two things," She hissed, ducking just beyond the spook's reach. "One, you shouldn't pick fights with strangers. Two -- and this is the important one . . . ."
Daws threw an open-handed swipe at the ragged spook, leaving a quartet of bloody gashes across his right shoulder. She followed that up with a left hook to his jaw that had all of her body weight behind it.
The spook reeled backwards, and Daws planted her feet and snarled at the group of ragged mutants, revealing her fangs. "I," She growled, "Am nobody's kitty cat."
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 17, 2006 22:19:45 GMT -5
The instant Daws hit the leading spook, Joey launched himself at the gray gargoyle. He knew what that one could do--and if he had a chance to open his mouth, he'd knock them flat with an ultrasonic screech.
As it was, the gargoyle never knew what hit him. Joey shifted into his elastic state and sprang, curling into a human wrecking ball that smashed shoulder-first into the spook. The gargoyle was flung backward several feet, cracking his head on the pavement where he fell.
As he bounced back from the impact, Joey landed on his feet and looked around. The first thing he saw was the other mundane-looking mutant, who had dropped into a crouch. The spook reached down, planting his hands flat on the ground... and became the epicenter of a small earthquake. Cracks split the street as the ground shook and trembled.
Joey bounced once to gather momentum, then made a flying leap that carried him up and over the quake-maker. He landed behind the spook and delivered a swift roundhouse kick to his head. The temblor ceased as the spook crumpled at Joey's feet.
Catching his breath, Joey looked around, anxious to see where Daws was and how she doing...
And where was that big tusk guy?
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Post by skybright on Jan 17, 2006 23:54:28 GMT -5
The spook she'd knocked backwards hadn't wasted much time; he came back cursing like a sailor and swinging, his skin shifting as he did so through a rapid succession of colors and patterns.
"You," Daws snarled as she ducked and rolled under the onslaught of punches, "Are bothering me. And," She aimed an uppercut at the multicolored jaw, "You're makin' my headache worse." The punch connected solidly this time -- the skin-shifter's head snapped back sharply and he hit the ground, out cold.
Daws spared a quick glance at the kid -- Well, now I know what he meant when he said he could 'bounce'. -- but she didn't have much time to judge if he was okay or not.
A huge, shaggy, and very foul-smelling hand swung in from her right; she ducked sideways, but still caught a hard blow in the nerve junction of her right shoulder. Pain roared through her skull and her right arm went numb. Daws howled and scrambled backwards, trying to buy time for her arm to regain feeling.
The big shaggy mutant shambled forward, snarling -- At least he's not very fast, thank God for some small favors -- then reeled as the ground beneath their feet suddenly started shaking. The big guy looked confused; he paused in his advance, and Daws made a split-second decision.
She pulled Sweetie from the holster tucked beneath her aching shoulder and leveled it between the big tusked mutant's eyes.
Of course it isn't loaded, She thought desperately, But you don't need to know that.
Please, please don't decide you need to know that.
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 18, 2006 19:50:36 GMT -5
The tusk guy glared at Daws, then at the gun in her hand. Then he turned and bounded back into the darkness of the alley the spooks had first emerged from, abandoning his unconscious comrades.
He hadn't been paid enough to take a bullet...
Rubbing his shoulder where he'd collided with the gargoyle, Joey loped over to Daws. "You okay?"
"That was weird," he added, frowning at the three insensate mutants sprawled in the street. "The spooks have never attacked like that before. They're too afraid the Boss might... not give them any more food."
Actually, the Boss was quite capable of doing a lot more than that to the spooks if they crossed him. However, Joey figured that was probably not the sort of thing he should be chatting freely about to the detective.
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Post by skybright on Jan 18, 2006 23:50:41 GMT -5
"Yeah, well, I'm just lucky like that." Daws checked the cylinder of her pistol -- empty, as she'd suspected -- before returning it to the holster. Then she rubbed gingerly at her aching shoulder, flexing her fingers to try and work out the tingling numbness. That was going to hurt for at least a couple of days.
She accepted her fedora -- second time today I've lost it -- from Joey's outstretched hand. "Thanks, kid. You're a heck of a fighter." Settling the hat back on her head -- her shoulder twinging in protest as she did so -- she turned her back on the unconscious trio of spooks.
"I dunno about you," She said, "But after a day like this, I could use something to eat. I know an all-night diner off Donner Boulevard. You wanna join me?"
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 19, 2006 23:01:11 GMT -5
Joey grinned. Daws being hungry after that scrap was about the last thing he'd expected.
"Sure," he replied gamely, and they continued on their way down the street, leaving the flattened spooks behind them.
A few moments later, the tusk guy lumbered back out of the alley... followed by no less a figure than Nicholas Tiernan himself. Nocturne watched without interest as the big mutant none too gently shoved the sprawling leader of the spooks, jarring him awake. The lead spook groaned and clambered to his feet.
"We want double the price for that," he growled, glaring at Tiernan as he rubbed the back of his head.
"I expected as much." Tiernan produced an envelope and flung it into the middle of the street. The tusk guy lurched forward, but the lead spook was faster and snatched it up, glowering at his partner.
By now the other two spooks were beginning to stir. Tiernan turned and walked away, leaving them to fight over the spoils on their own. The rather hastily arranged demonstration had shown him what he wanted to know.
She can hold her own in a fight...
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Post by skybright on Jan 19, 2006 23:43:21 GMT -5
Daws and Joey made their way into progressively nicer territory -- "nicer" being a totally relative term, naturally -- without either of them saying much. Daws, for her part, was piecing together the evening's rather chaotic events into some sort of logical order.
Tiernan wasn't likely to give her any access to anything useful until she'd been with the organization longer. Trying to get information out of Tiernan himself would be like trying to push against a shadow. And the Ferret, apparently, wasn't just on Tiernan's leash -- he was right at the man's heels. (Plus, those venemous looks George'd been shooting her meant he probably wasn't going to be anywhere near as chummy as he'd been in the past.)
It seemed her best bet for now was to sit back, play the part, and (much as she hated it) wait for an opening to present itself.
Meanwhile, there was the kid -- Joey. Something about him reminded Daws faintly of herself, back when she'd been a half-starved, newly turned mutant just taken under Jack's wing. She didn't like the fact that the only one to take this kid under the wing had been Tiernan -- he didn't strike her as the good role model type.
They reached Marco's -- a dingy, neon-lit all night diner nestled on a side street -- and Daws pushed the door open. Bells jangled and a warm draft of Johnny Cash music and fried-potato smell rushed past her. She gestured the kid inside, then followed him.
Sit wherever. A diffidently-lettered sign by the register instructed, and they did so -- sliding into a booth where menus sat waiting.
Daws took off her hat, ran her fingers briefly through her tousled hair, and grinned. "It ain't the Ritz," she said, "But they've got good coffee and killer french fries."
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 20, 2006 0:48:01 GMT -5
"Fries sounds good." Joey picked up the lovingly stained menu and glanced over it. Truth be told, Tiernan fed his people extremely well, but it was nice to be away from the sterile environment of Tiernan Enterprises for a while. He finally settled on fries and a hamburger, and gave his order to the waitress, a tired-looking woman who was having a bad hair year.
The waitress then turned to Daws, without the slightest interest whatsoever in her mutation. You saw it all when you worked at these hours, in this city--and she figured the muties' money was just as green, anyway.
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Post by skybright on Jan 20, 2006 18:04:11 GMT -5
Daws ordered coffee, black -- "Unless you've got bourbon for it," which earned her an unamused stare from the waitress -- and a steak with fries. Then she leaned back against the cracked, discolored plastic padding of the booth's seat and massaged her still-aching shoulder.
"Remind me not to go wandering in that neighborhood anytime soon." She remarked. Then she added, "You put up a great fight back there, kid. I'd have been dead meat without ya.
"I'm not surprised you're a basketball player, either -- with powers like that."
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 20, 2006 22:44:33 GMT -5
Joey blushed and shrugged. "Oh, I'm not that good. I don't like fighting. But the Boss makes sure I practice, in case of... things happening. Like tonight." He dropped his gaze and poked at the ice in his soda with the straw. "I know trouble comes with the job."
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Post by skybright on Jan 21, 2006 1:43:47 GMT -5
That provoked a frown Daws probably wouldn't have bothered disguising even if it hadn't been a deity-defying hour of the morning. "Trouble comes with my job, Ricochet. A nice kid like you, though -- you really shouldn't have to worry about trouble like that."
She took a slug of the newly-delivered coffee -- sadly sans bourbon -- and couldn't help but chuckle as she lowered the coffee cup. "Of course, I'm nobody to talk. Jack had me learning how to brawl and shoot by the time I was fifteen. Life's tough for us, he always used to say. So you gotta be tougher." She shook her head ruefully. "I never did figure out if by 'us' he meant mutants, private eyes, or both."
Daws studied the red-headed boy's face. "But tell me something, Joey -- what's a kid who runs errands need to know how to fight like that for?" Her voice softened. " Does stuff like tonight happen a lot?"
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 21, 2006 22:35:35 GMT -5
"Well, not to me," Joey replied with a slight grin, scratching behind his ear. "Everyone who works for the Boss is good to me, and he never sends me out on the... uh... important business. Like I said, even the spooks never bothered me before. But sometimes I have to go around with George and Hori and the others to do whatever, and they get into trouble all the time."
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Post by skybright on Jan 22, 2006 18:12:32 GMT -5
Daws laughed heartily. "Now that doesn't surprise me a bit -- not knowing George."
The waitress arrived with their orders, and she set the plates and the check on the table with the bored sigh of greasy-spoon martyrs everywhere.
Daws waited until the waitress had retreated back to the dark recesses of the kitchen, then snatched a french fry and leaned closer across the table.
"Look, Joey, I'm going to be honest -- I didn't mean to end up at your boss's place tonight. I wanted to do some more snooping around before I got involved. But," She popped the fry into her mouth, "It looks like involved is what I am, whether I meant it or not. So tell me,"
She leveled her grey eyes on the boy's face. "Am I gonna regret what I've gotten myself into?"
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Post by Jordanna on Jan 23, 2006 20:36:56 GMT -5
Joey frowned. He had already begun to like Daws very much, but he wasn't privy to what had taken place in the sparring room. He didn't know why she had been brought to the Bunker, or what business she had with the Boss, and he hesitated to say too much.
"Look, I don't know what brought you to the Boss--he just told me to take you where you wanted to go. If you're working for him now, all I can tell you is what everybody who works for him knows. If you're serious about the job, and you do what you're told, you'll get treated really well. But if you ever try to double-cross him..." His blue eyes darkened gravely. "You'll be in trouble."
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Post by skybright on Jan 23, 2006 21:51:35 GMT -5
And that told Daws more than enough for tonight. Her already-faltering opinion of Tiernan dropped sharply; anybody who had a kid Joey's age kept loyal through fear and intimidation was A) up to no kind of good and B) in for all sorts of trouble from Daws.
She nodded casually. "That's all I needed to know -- and about what I had figured anyways. I'm not interested in rocking the boat." Yet.
She reached for her coffee cup, rubbed at the twinge the motion gave her injured shoulder, and turned the topic to lighter matters. "So, you think the Knicks are gonna be any good this year?"
They passed another hour or so in casual talk; then Daws paid the bill and settled her hat on her head.
"I'm gonna call it a night, kid -- or a morning, rather. You need an escort home?"
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