A Murder of Crows [Open]

[Jesse Fforde]

Jesse had missed out on the weapons expo that Shan had organised. He had his own work to attend to, and a couple of regular customers who happened to have booked in to have tattoos etched on the same night. If he needed weapons, he knew that he could track Shan down – or he could find some of his own. He isn’t sure that he was prepared, just yet, to throw himself into a public, social setting. Sure, his texted discussion with Micah had calmed him, somewhat – and had made him realise that descending into complete silence again would be childishly stubborn.

But that doesn’t mean Jesse wouldn’t curb his habits. Distance himself just enough so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the ensuing ******** that his personality seems to inspire. He’s not hiding. He’s not a dog licking his wounds. He’s not distancing himself for the benefit of others, not really, but more for the benefit of himself. Drama is not a thing that he encourages, or condones, and there’s a certain level of cohesive amiability that needs to exist for a faction and/or a family to exist in harmony. If there’s any amount of selflessness in his actions, it’s for the sake of Tytonidae. Or Andras.

He doesn’t dwell on it any further than that. He feels, for his own sanity, that a breather is required. A break, of sorts, from social interactions that may or may not mean anything. And so he will take his break and will, no doubt, slowly inch back in to the social spotlight, though would constantly remain just at the edge. And it doesn’t matter, does it? He’d missed out on the weapons expo, but had still received his weaponry by way of Grey. A shiny new gun, and a shiny new staff which can be used as a blunt weapon. With a notion to trying them out, Jesse drops down into the dank darkness of the sewers, his boots splashing in residual water as he pauses just by the entrance, assessing the battle ground in front of him. It’s the Cherrydale entrance where, for some reason or other, people like to linger. None of them are a threat, however, and thus Jesse moves past them, sticking to the dry path with a weapon in each hand, strides confident and purposeful, and his eyes and ears sharp.

What he doesn’t expect, when he rounds the corner, is some kind of meeting. There’s got to be eight to ten hunters and paladins all gathered, lingering in the recesses and pathways of the sewers. One of them is standing on an old crate, giving a speech which Jesse doesn’t hear; the words are cut off at the exact same moment that Jesse feels a boot in the small of his back, and gravity sends him directly into the middle of the group. One of the hunters had, obviously, come late to the little gathering and had wandered up behind Jesse – he curses himself, inwardly, for having been caught off guard.

Not one to quaver at a challenge, Jesse merely stands his ground. The encounter is a surprise encounter. Everyone stands still and silent for maybe two seconds. And then Jesse rolls his head on his shoulders. A bone in his neck cracks – a habit that he has, when confronted. The safety clicks off his gun, and he twirls the staff, baton-like, in his left hand. There’s fire and slaughter in his eyes, and a cold smirk on his lips.

Come at me, he seems to say with sadistic silence. Come the **** at me.

There’s a battle cry, uttered by one of the hunters. And so the battle begins.

[Ripper]

The crowd was beginning to build up again inside the Cherrydale underground. Ripper just didn't understand why it was that--out of all the veritable number of choices in possible districts-- that it would be this one in the city that the Neophytes and drifters always seem to chose to congregate in?

"Don't you people have any homes that you can go back to?!"

He had run them off once before; although he had to admit that as a crowd they were not so bad. It's wasn't like they were holding a constant rave party going or some other type of obnoxious behavior that might easily turn a bad situation dangerous. Even many of the faces here in the crowd now were new-comers that had cycled through to replace most of the old.

[Jesse Fforde]

There is a moment where Jesse realises he’ll probably need some help; but it’s not a thought that lasts very long. Regardless of how he had once spiralled, regardless of how much that specific depression had affected him, Jesse’s ego had not taken long to bounce back and return to its full fervour. He’s not accustomed to taking on ten hunters by himself, and that’s what he decides, in the heat of the moment – it’s unexpected, is all. That doesn’t mean he won’t be able to deal with the situation, and do it with style.

The gun is quick in his hands, and the trigger is pulled without a second’s hesitation. The tat-tat-tat of rapid gunfire echoes in the confined space of the sewers as Jesse swings himself around in a fall circle, dropping to his haunches at the same time. Bullets spray, a few pinging off the walls, causing the brick to crumble and shatter. There are a few satisfying thuds as the bullets find their marks. Whatever the case, the move did as Jesse hoped it would. The hunters all fall back in a wave, though it doesn’t take them long to recover.

As they surge again, this time with a weaker front, Jesse swings out a leg and trips one of them; the woman falls hard to the ground, her head cracking against the cement. A sharp pain bolts through Jesse’s nerves as a dagger is thrust into his back, narrowly missing the heart. He swings, and thrust upward with his own sword, skewering his cowardly attacker. Jesse does not miss his mark. The sword goes straight through the hunter’s heart.

There’s the sound of gunfire, and a burning agony rips through Jesse’s torso. He lets loose a shout of fury, having to abandon the St. James Broadsword momentarily, as it’s stuck in his foes chest, to turn to deal with the gun toter – there’s still too many of them. Jesse realises he’s actually in deep ****, but there’s no way he’s going to give up. No way at all. There’s nothing to do but keep fighting.

[Clover]

She looks like **** and she knows it. Months ago, her appearance might have mattered, but not anymore. She had her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, showing off her face and the black smears of dirt and red smudges of drying blood. Still wearing the faded clothing of a the local hospital, Clover looked the part of an escaped mental patient; for once, she felt the part of one.

When she took off toward the station, the dark-haired girl had no intention of staying in the city limits. She had her eyes set on the skyline. Except that wasn’t where she would find him. That wasn’t where she would find her answers or her vengeance. She wanted the one that dropped her into the sea of doubt, opening her eyes to the things that went bump in the night. She still didn’t know exactly what existed in the shadows, but she had a feeling. She had a feeling that she’d had for such a long time that she hardly remembered the day the feeling formed in the pit of her empty stomach.

As soon as she reached the Cherrydale station, she began an aimless walk amongst the wild grass. She let the sleeves of her white-and-blue shirt fall down over her wrists and the tops of her hands until only her fingers were shown. Her pants, two sizes too big, looked like a poor man’s imitation of a skirt. The looks people were giving her as she traveled from one part of the city to the next! She had money, though not as much as she wanted or needed, and yet she couldn’t waltz into a bank and make a withdrawal. No, she was homeless. She was another stray on the streets of Harper Rock.

She curled her bare toes in the grass, treasuring the feel of nature on her skin. The cops would find her again. She would have to make a choice between going with or without a struggle. Maybe she would go to prison. Maybe she would go back to her old room.

“Where are you hiding now?” She whispered, even though no one else was around to hear. “I know you’re not human. I know. Even if everyone thinks I’m ******* crazy,” she spoke a little louder then, but her voice lost its strength near the end.

She caught a flash of light reflecting off someone’s lighter and her heart jumped into her throat. No one was supposed to find her. The man outside of her window must have tracked her! His kind must have found out about her knowledge. She was going to suffer the same fate. She would cry out as the infection swept through her body, until she was nothing more than a husk of her former self. When she felt the twinge of the muscles in her legs, she darted off down the road, her hair slapping against the side of her face when she took that first sharp turn.

Suddenly, the air was too thin. Her clothes were too tight. She couldn’t run from everyone and everything. So she stopped. Broken glass crunched underneath her bare feet, and she saw her blood running like tiny rivers toward the sewer grate. The sewers were disgusting: They were infested with rats and filled with trash, not to mention the interesting people that made the dark recesses their home. She looked back at the direction from whence she fled and she heard the steady clicking of shoes against the pavement. She only had a moment to make a decision, and she took it.

Her fingers dug at the cover to the sewer and she practically threw herself down the opening. She had to crawl to her feet and hoist herself up the ladder to replace the cover; she had to make it look as if she had simply disappeared. She closed her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but her ears remained open. The sound of the footsteps had faded, replaced by the sound of something very familiar. Gunshots.

Clover placed both hands over her mouth to silence her urge to scream. She’d heard some sort of cry, whether one of pain or one of fury, and she didn’t want to attract attention. She didn’t need to attract attention. When a moment of silence fell over the area, she took off running. Her bare feet made little splashing sounds whenever she happened upon a bit of standing water. And oh, her feet burned! She kept pressing onward though. She had to keep running. Thumpthump. Thumpthump.

She felt something graze her cheek and she froze. The bullet had taken a bit of flesh from her right cheek and made a beeline for the wall behind her. She’d run right toward the fighting and she didn’t know how to get out. There were so many of them. They were moving so fast.

“Oh God,” she croaked. She took a step back and her foot slid on the wet floor, sending her back against the wall. She pressed herself against it and prayed. She found exactly what she was looking for.

[Ripper]

The sounds of a fight in the distance hurried the Killer to speed forward towards the gunshots. Although the Paladins (his most favored opponent in the Sewers) did not use guns while they hunted; but it sounded like the group of human hunters ahead were many in number and might well organized and better equipped than the other bands of foot soldiers that patrolled these halls seeking to kill the others of his kind.

This didn't mean to say how they wouldn't have sought to kill him too had their group come upon the chance. It was just that currently he was the one seeking to kill them so they never got that opportunity afforded to them.

Ripper tore in from the crowd from behind as they concentrated the bulk of their fire at the two smaller kindered that had fallen in to their snare. He grabbed the heads of two in each hand and slammed them both together into a bloody smash that left a smear behind.

Now he was in on their ranks as they turned away to deal with the newcomer. From this close of range and at the angle of attack was was presenting with it would be very hard for them to take aim and have a clear shot without the danger of having more friendly fire strike their comrades.

[Jesse Fforde]

There’s no sense of time or space. Not really. There’s only Jesse and his attackers; he can focus only on them. And not on just one at a time, but on all of them. And it’s hard. Back and forth he swings, ducking and diving, rolling and launching himself from nearby walls. Bones break, crushed beneath heavy blows, necks snap – shadows come to life to skewer solidly through flesh and touch muscle. Jesse makes no other sound, now; he doesn’t even grunt in the heat of the battle. He moves like a man possessed, his blue eyes glinting like ice in the shadowy depths of the rank and stinking sewer systems. The rats have all scattered, running from the scuffle that has invaded their normally quiet homes.

The smell of blood soon overwhelms the acrid stench of the sewers. Freshly spilled human blood – and the blood of the Paladins, which somehow smells a little different, as if tainted with something. Magic, perhaps? The water splashing at their feet is no longer clear, or murky as it usually is. It is instead thick with red cruor.

At some point, the weight of the attacks lessened. Jesse assumes, to begin with, that he’s not in as deep **** as he had previously thought. Upon closer inspection, however—not that he really has the extra focus to inspect much—he realises he has instead been joined by an ally, of sorts. Another vampire. And why not? The place isn’t only crawling with hunters, but with the vampires who wish to rid the city of the hunter scum. Or, even just those who want to indulge in a bit of slaughter against a semi-worthy foe.

The crowd seems to split in order to deal with the other attacker. This gives Jesse the opportunity to relax that tiny little bit – to focus on more, rather than just on how best to avoid becoming a sponge for bullets and blades. The hunters all wear black clothing. It’s the splash of blue-white that catches Jesse’s attention. It’s a colour that does not belong down here.

There’s a strangled Oh, God just as a man with a scar running from forehead to chin rushes Jesse. Jesse pushes the hunter back with a swift and thorough kick to its chest; the sound of ribs breaking, the feel of it beneath Jesse’s boot, is satisfying. The Necromancer’s shadow splits from his body and skewers the hunter through the chest. Blood spurts from the guy’s mouth, his eyes bulge, and he falls to his knees. The sword he’d been carrying clatters to the stone ground as his hands flutter and press against his chest.

And all the while, Jesse is backing toward the girl. He has confirmed that she is, in fact, female. Tearing his gaze away from the furor, he assesses the situation. It looks like she’s wearing hospital garb. There’s blood pouring from her cheek. One sniff of the air and it’s obvious she’s human. Jesse is about to look away and ignore her completely – to let her die, because of what she has obviously witnessed – but his gaze snags on a bright splash of colour. It’s etched into her skin, all the way down her arm. He can see it, peeking out from beneath the neck of the garb.

There’s a thuck that follows a loud crack. Jesse grunts. Another ******* bullet in the gut—that’s what he gets for not paying attention. It’s in his gut, rather than in the gut of the girl he has now positioned himself in front of. Jesse raises his gun, now, and shoots. He presses that finger to the trigger and he shoots without regard, wildly – he’ll hit his target, sooner or later.

[Clover]

In the darkness, Clover became a beacon of color. She knew, without the aid of artificial light or sunlight, that she stood out from the area’s other inhabitants. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, but she couldn’t disappear. Pure will couldn’t teleport her from where she stood. She was stuck in the midst of a bloody battle and she couldn’t decide whether she had to worry more about the group of attackers or the two defenders. Or maybe there were three. She couldn’t make out distinctive features, but she saw the outlines of bodies.

Clover moved her hands up to her face to shield herself from her surroundings. She had to keep her eyes on the shadows though. She had to keep coherent. Her fingertips trailed down her face, prodding the open wound on her cheek. It felt like she’d been shot, as if the bullet had ripped right through her flesh, but she knew it was a flesh wound.

She was lucky. The attackers paid no attention to her. None of the large group seemed to care that she witnessed the attacks. They were all too busy fighting amongst themselves. Maybe if she left, she could just forget running into any of them. She pressed her blood-smeared palms against the sewer wall and slid along the tunnel. She thought she had an opening, but she watched as a black-clad man cut off her escape route. He actually looked at her, or she thought he looked at her, and then he rushed forward to join his brethren.

“This can’t be happening to me,” Clover thought, watching the man run toward the destruction. "This isn't happening," she finally vocalized. There were crunches of bone and the steady tapping of liquid connecting with the stone floor. He’d been killed. He fell to his knees, almost as if he were making an offering, and Clover forgot all about her attempt at escape.

She should have died a long time ago. Only her crazed determination for vengeance, her need for revenge, fueled her--her life blood came in the form of garbled memories and animalistic anger. In the back of her mind, she knew she was witnessing something extraordinary. Were they all like the shadow man? Were they all like the Angry Man?

She looked up from the sewer floor to see a growing shadow. Someone was moving toward her. Someone was going to break her bones, or maybe he would stab her or shoot her. Most of the forms were too large to belong to women, and the one before her, the one looming over her, definitely belonged to a man. She readied her fists, her hands pulled so tight she felt the dried blood cracking just over her knuckles. She readied to swing, but she heard a dull sound followed by a volley of gunshots.

She dropped to her hands and knees. She’d been hit once and once was enough. Clover crawled forward and began feeling along the ground. When her hands met with sticky blood and chunks of unknown material, she stopped. Her knee bumped against something hard and she grabbed at it, fumbling around to keep her balance and her hold on the object. She’d never fired a gun before, not a real gun. Water guns and air rifles didn’t really count.

She didn’t know where to aim, so she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger, sending a quick splattering of bullets into the darkness. The recoil sent her onto her back and she lost her hold on the gun. Whether she hit someone or not, she couldn’t tell--she tried to find the gun again, but she was slipping too much in the blood. Her ears were ringing and her hands were shaking.

[Jesse Fforde]

The words aren’t lost on Jesse. This isn’t happening. The way the sewers are structured, the way the sound bounces and echoes and becomes louder than what it is; given his preternatural hearing, and how out of place the sound of the frightened, incredulous female voice is, it’s hard to miss. Even in the scuffle, even though he’s got a few wounds, Jesse still smiles, a little wryly. It amuses him that she should be trying to deny the reality of the situation.

The bullets that he sends into the fray hit one of the remaining hunters. There aren’t many left, now. The guy—or girl?—turns toward Jesse. Using his gun, as well as his command of the shadows, Jesse throws himself into the fray, one more time. He catches another couple of bullets – another to the gut, and one to the leg, but still manages to aim properly and land a few hits of his own. At one point he backflips to avoid a volley of bullets, and in the end sends the hunter crumbling to the ground with a well-aimed bullet to the chest, fired whilst mid-air, having launched himself at the wall to use it as a launching pad, spinning into the air and out of harm’s way.

It’s only then that the bullets start to spray from behind; he finds himself ducking, turning, expecting another hunter but instead sees that same girl, like a glowing beacon in the darkness of the sewers—the darkness that he himself is accustomed to, that his preternatural eyes have adjusted to—firing a gun in a way that makes it obvious she is an amateur. Jesse growls and stalks toward her.

There is another vampire in the vicinity. Possessiveness is active in Jesse’s movements, in his intentions. He’s taken a few hits, has lost a bit of blood. He doesn’t think about what he’s doing or why—it could have something to do with his thirst. It could have something to do with the tattoos. It could have everything to do with basic predatory instinct and wanting to claim something, to keep it from the other predators who might be lurking.

Of course he could thank the other vampire for his help. He could be reasonable. But he’s not. He instead kicks the gun out of the girl’s hands and reaches down to attempt to curl his hand under her upper arm, to try to haul her to her feet, his gun still held firmly in the other hand. To get her up, and perhaps haul her to a different part of the sewers, away from the ruckus, away from prying eyes.

[Ripper]

The fight was mostly over now that all of the combatants in it were either dead or had fled the scene if they could manage to. Several hunters were nursing various wounds that seemed quite serious.

Looking around for the kindred who had started it all, he spotted Jesse struggling with the small brightly colored human who had not been a part of the original pack. Ripper crossed the room in the blink of a flash until he was over in the corner by them.

"You dumb little ****!" he growled, taking a hold of the vampire's forearm and seizing him by the wrist. "Don't you know what happens when one of ours gets killed?"
He squeezed down mercilessly on the younger kindred as he sought to pull him up to lock eyes at his level.

"It comes back around to bite all the rest of us, that's what!"

[Clover]

Clover placed both palms flat on the ground and tried pushing herself away from the oncoming storm. The man that had placed himself in front of her, knowingly or unknowingly shielding her, came toward her like a vicious hurricane. The bullets meant for the remaining attackers must have gone right by him, or right through him. Her mind fills in those last three words, taunting her with her own lapse of judgment.

She didn’t get the chance to turn onto her side and crawl away on her hands and knees. She had a moment to let out a shriek and then she felt his hand on her upper arm. He tugged her to her feet and she wondered if he wanted to look into her eyes as he killed her. Maybe he wanted her to stare down the barrel of a gun. The types of people that littered the tunnels of the sewers.

“I didn’t see anything!” The words fell from her quivering lips. She could feel hot tears gathering in her eyes, a big contrast to the chill that ran up her spine. Before she could continue groveling, she saw another approaching, another man cutting through the darkness. That one, the second man, sounded mean. That one ranted. That one scared her without laying a finger on her.

“When one of yours gets killed?” She must have whispered it aloud because she heard the question in her own voice. “Is this a gang? Is that what this is all about? Or,” she stopped and pressed her lips together. No. No, she could play stupid. She could pretend she didn’t know about the disease. She could pretend she didn’t think that they were infected. She had so many plans and being killed wasn’t a part of said plans.

Clover didn’t want to die in the dark, in the sewers, clad in ratty hospital clothing.