ArchivedLogs:Step Into My Parlor

Step Into My Parlor
Dramatis Personae Jim, Murphy, Nox, Tatters
In Absentia	2013-02-17 Murphy does not get eaten by a grue.
Location <MOR> Below New York
Buried beneath the bustle and noise of New York's busy streets, the world underneath the city is a quieter place. Quieter, but far from deserted. Occasional ladders, often rusting, ascend to the city above and are evidence that at /one/ point these tunnels had been in use, or had been planned for it; perhaps by way of maintenance, or access to subways or sewers. These stretches have been abandoned by civic infrastructure for some time now, though, but occasional scraps of evidence -- discarded food wrappers, piles of tatty blankets or moldering old mattresses, sometimes voices carrying echoes through the dank concrete -- give evidence that /someone/ still uses these tunnels. The rumbling of subway trains sounds frequently through the walls, many of the train routes accessible through various doors and openings. Thick and steady run-off from the recent sleet pours down the city's gutters, mingling into a murky, frigid underground river. It's cold enough down here to shrivel the Devil's balls. Murphy hits the ground with a rough *SLOP*, heavy boots slapping into the puddle underneath; he immediately steps aside to make way for Jim, crowbar in hand. No flashlight. New coat--fresh, clean. Showered, too. *And* shaved--he's still got a tiny bandaid on his left jaw from a razor-nick. Back up on the surface, Jim probably said something smart about it. And Murphy probably told him to 'go fertilize yourself'. No sooner have they hit the cold stone does Murphy walk forward--plunging headlong into darkness without the slightest bit of hesitation. After all, he's been here before--and that's enough for him to know every corner, every niche, every crack, every goddamn *seam* of the place better than he knows his own dick. And man, let me tell you, he knows... okay, I won't tell you. As he starts walking, he starts talking--voice low, swinging back to Jim. "The kid," he says. "You've seen him." It's not a question. Just a goddamn statement of fact. "Seen the photo," Jim drops down beside Murphy; you better believe he had some lip to hand Murphy, likely along the lines of asking if he was polished up to see his girlfriend. He hasn't shaved - or if he has, his scruff has already bristled back to life, salt and peppered. Also peppering is a subtle growth of mossy green amongst the stubble, curling around the sides of his neck and spanning the backs of his hands. He still has the stub of a cigarette clamped in his the side of his mouth to take a last hard drag before flicking it at the ground. "Not the kid." He falls in partially behind Murphy, glancing over his shoulder to watch their backs, hands tucked casually in pockets like this was just another stroll in the park. Someone has been down here recently. A work crew, perhaps. Some of the more offensive grafitti has been painted over in broad blotches of grey, some of the garbage has been moved or taken out. The rusting cages where light bulbs had been broken are refilled. They are not faring well in all of this damp. Half are dark, the others flicker intermittently, giving the occasional hum, the occasional sputter, painting the interior of the tunnel in snapshots of sickly yellow-grey light. The water, where it is deepest, threatens to wet their ankles. At the end of the tunnel, where it branches to left and right, something moves against the barely visible wall. Dark on slightly less dark, that movement proves to be shadows. They have the thin and crooked appearance of segmented giant legs, the sort of shadow cast by a thing lurking just around the corner. A very large thing, lurking /poorly/. A very /spidery/ large thing. Murphy curses. It's a rare vice. "Figured you for it," he says. "Fuck. I must be gettin' rusty. Guess that means you never met the shadow dame, either," he continues, before adding--with the slightest twist of a grin: "Too bad. Was thinkin' you might be friends with her. Was thinkin' that might be why you asked to tag along. Guess this means we're *both* probably gonna get fucked." And then Murphy stops. Shifting. Eyes narrowing, peering at that darkness on darkness. If Jim's not careful, he'll whack right up against Murphy's behind. "You seein' that shit?" he asks, his voice suddenly low--he adds: "Shadow dame, maybe. Or maybe somethin' else." He doesn't elaborate on 'something else', seeing how 'something else' would have to be... well, a giant fucking *spider*. "Everyone gets fucked one way or another," Jim has opted to bring a tire iron along, tucked under an arm like a negligent handbag, his eyes already fixed on the slip of shadow. He sucks his teeth, uttering low through his teeth, "Murph, I don't got the damned idea /what/ I'm seeing." Without thinking, he eases his back against the wall, continuing to edge forwards, lips compressed into a flat hyphen. His crows feet twist deeper, the further he narrows his eyes. When there is more talking and no running away, the legs are joined by others, all on the advance. They carry the shadow of a cephalothorax forward, pedipalps flicking out and curling under. A bloated abdomen is next. More legs. Still only the shadow, but growing squatter and denser as the owner draws nearer the corner. And there are splashes, little bloops of water being displaced by the tips of those long, slender legs. That's the only sound--no chittering, no hissing, no other warning that it has heard them and is coming. Nox, it seems, does not give second chances. When she rushes them, it comes all at once. She's carrying the darkness with her and it swallows the tunnel as she advances on the pair of men. It's difficult to tell where the shadows end and the spider form begins, but it's there in the center of the cloud, darker than is natural, with no shading to mark where light bounces off of curves or eyes or anything else that would help the brain comprehend dimensions. Jim is ignored but for being thrown into darkness, with Murphy serving as the first course. He gets the brunt of that assault, spider limbs bending unnaturally to shove the man up and against the wall, above the water. "Did you not understand stay out?" "HEY." A voice, half croak and half shout, calls out from around the corner, and after a few seconds full of splashy footsteps a stocky figure, hunched profile augmented by her hood, backpack, and the weight-bar she rests across her shoulders, rounds the corner. Her wide, almost froglike eyes squint down the tunnel, wide pupils bordered by a narrow ring of gold. "NO ONE's getting fucked down here. You wanna do that, take it upstairs. This ain't the Tunnel of Friggen Lo-NOX!" As the spidery shadow sweeps past her she straightens, adding a good few inches to her height as she pulls herself out of her hunched stature, her croak suddenly severe and authoritative. "PUT THE GUY DOWN, jeeze. Unless we're, like, in imminent danger, then take him out and /explain yourself./" Her command loses a good bit of its bite as she trails off into her caveat, swinging her pole in front of her and holding it like a sword as she eyes the two intruders cautiously. "Yeah, but I'd much rather have dinner and a movie first," Murphy grumbles, but then all the sudden there are LEGS and ABDOMENS and what the HELL--Murphy is shoved hard up against the wall, his brain-box rattling like a pair of dice in an angry gambler's fist. His hands are up in the next moment--and then there's that voice, rushing out over him and Jim. To Murphy's credit--though the shove catches him off-guard--he doesn't show one shred of fear in the face of all that unnaturalness. Caution, maybe--but not fear. Instead, he just lifts his head back, and starts talking--nice and slow and easy. "Jim, this is Nox. She controls shadows. Nox, this is Jim. He's a tree." Then, much quicker--realizing he's running on borrowed time, here: "Yeah, yeah, I understood, I'm just too stupid to care. But *before* you go ahead and start with the nastiness, you might wanna hear what I gotta s--" He's interrupted by another voice. A *new* voice. Murphy's head snaps up--his eyes narrow at the sight of... of... okay, what the fuck is *that*? Against the darkness washing past, Jim had cast up am arm, ducking down behind his inner elbow with tire iron held yet loose at his side. Then the arm drops, and he tucks hand back in his pocket, mouth fixed in a rictus corner-wise grin, eyes pinched. It's not his Happy Face, though it's even. "Miss /Nox/," he says, right on top of Murphy's introduction, "Yeah. Thought it might be you. How you been, lady." No, he hadn't bothered tell Murphy he might know a guy or two; in this business, if you're not certain, you keep your lip buttoned. And your eyes /open/. His tire iron lowers fully when Tatters's rises, held out slightly at his side real carefully while exhaling through his teeth, "And Miss /Jill/. We're not lookin' for trouble." Nox does not put the guy down. She does not /want/ to put the guy down and therefore, he remains pinned to the wall. With the spider bluff now finished, the shape she'd taken blurs into simple shadow. It remains, however, thick and amorphous but with tendrils that lace Murphy's chest and legs and one thin clammy tentacle that presses--very much like a threat--against his throat. To explain the nature of her aggression, she murmurs simply, "I told him to never come back. He is after Victor and now he has returned, with a friend." A friend that Nox has not bothered to look at, being busy with debating whether or not to take Tatters' advice to end him. Throat-tendril twitches, tempted. But when Nox bothers to listen to the aforementioned friend speak, and put two and two together, the decision to /not/ kill Murphy becomes easier. She rolls backwards, tide-like, leaving him to drop in order to hover behind Tatters. "Tatterhood's friend of a friend, Jim." The whisper is calm and pleasant enough, as greetings go. "Oh, you." Tatters doesn't rush to apologize, but she does pull back from her aggressive stance and lean her weapon once again against a shoulder. "Uh, Tim, was it?" Absently tapping her pole against her shoulder -- a feat that should be much more difficult than it looks considering the weight of the thing, she flicks a glance from one intruder to the other, trying to make out what she can of them past Nox's shadows. "Uh, what /are/ you looking for down here? If not, like, trouble. If Nox's already warned you off this was pretty dumb, she doesn't really screw around." Murphy's eyes narrow to slits. Not at the threat of death--not even at the press against his throat. No, what earns *his* attention are the words that emerge from Nox's mouth. 'He is after Victor'. "So the kid *is* here," Murphy says. "You've been playing den mother to all the poor buggers who the city don't want to see. *Fuck*," he says, and though he sounds pissed, and exhausted, there's a relief in his face--like he's finally figured something out. In his mind, puzzle-pieces, left astray, finally tumble together into a complete picture--they *snap* into place, providing a rush of understanding. And in that instant, Murphy experiences--for only a moment--the slightest respite from his perpetual goddamn misery. It's gone in an instant. When he slides down to the floor, he lowers his arms--and picks his crowbar back up. "Yeah, I know." He reaches into his coat pocket, pulling something out. It's... ...it's a goddamn *christmas* gift. Wrapping and everything. White, with images of baseballs and catcher mitts and bats emblazoned all over it. Looks about the size of a book. Even has a ribbon. A little ragged, a little worn--the paper's nicked and torn in a few spots--but otherwise, it's in surprisingly good condition... particularly considering it's about two months overdue. "And I'm tired of repeating myself, but I'll do it one more time because fuck you: When I say I'm gonna do something, I fucking *do* it. No matter *how* fucking stupid." "Jim," the correction has a lip-twitch of vague misery, vague bemusement. "This is Murphy. I'll tell ya this, he's grade A asshole, certified. But he ain't here to take any damn body, much less some kid, or I'll put him in the ground myself." Jim straightens his coat with a yank of the lapels, "He just wants to give the kid a thing. You wanna arrange a meet, pick when and where, we'll be there. Whatever counts as neutral ground -- or to your favor for all it'll matter." He tosses down the tire iron entirely, "And we'll owe you one." Murphy cuts Jim off at 'your favor'. "Kid's *already* said no, Jim. Shadow dame wouldn't have kept this from him--and she sure as hell wouldn't be a hair's breadth away from makin' me the most handsome corpse in New York if he said *yes*. I don't need a meet, not anymore. I got my answer. Now I just need a delivery boy." Murphy says, "He don't want the letter, that's his business. I'll keep it in case he ever changes his mind. But he sure as *fuck* is getting the goddamn present." Nox makes no move to take the present. Paranoia runs deep, underground. But it is clear that the woman does not appreciate the attitude of the man who's come bearing it. The atmosphere in the tunnel, dank and gloomy to begin with, becomes downright horror-movie appropriate. The bulk of the darkness lurking behind Tatters slowly begins to solidify again but in no pleasant way. "It is his choice, not yours. His." "Jim. Sorry, lots've names that day. And, uh," Tatters turns her attention to Murphy, and gives him a bemused look. "We're clearly supposed to be impressed with your, like, /tenacity,/ but a policy like that just tells me that maybe you should stop promising to do stupid dangerous crap." She looks slightly taken aback at the revelation of the present, though, and after sharing a glance with Nox she leans her pole against the wall and steps forwards, extending a hand for the box. "But I can get this to him, if he wants. I'm gonna open it here, though -- carefully -- to make sure it doesn't explode or something. He hasn't said anything about it, but some guys come in carrying a present from some people a kid's running from and doesn't want to even talk to? Means I can't rule out the mob or something dumb like that." Tatters' face is level and mostly expressionless, though she does offer a shrug of apology at her distrust. "This could be a friggen Cristmas special, but it's also pretty sketchy. Sorry." Jim only massages the bridge of his nose wearily, nodding his head. Yeah. He gets it. "You ain't supposed to be impressed by shit," Murphy responds. "I don't give a fuck. I shit where I eat just on fucking principle." And at the notion of unwrapping the Christmas present, Murphy seems... genuinely offended. Like Tatters just recommended taking a piss on it. "Th'fuck? It ain't a christmas package without the fucking wra--look, ain't you ever had a fucking Christm..." He stops, takes a hard, long look at Tatters--then grunts. "Nevermind. Right. *Fine*, but you gotta fucking rewrap it before you give it to him. And you can't tell him what's in it, you understand?" He glares at Nox, then. Fearless and full of hate. This is the sort of stupid you just can't find anymore--not because it's rare--but because there's scarcely ever an occurrence in nature that lives past puberty. This is the sort of stupid that has aligned itself in every way against the continued perpetuation of its own existence: "It's a computer tablet. And one of those prepaid credit cards. Hundred bucks on it, I think. He don't want it, fine--chuck it in the sewer. Give it to a hobo on the street. Hell, *you* keep it. But god /damn/ it, he's got to know that someone up there still remembers him." The lights in the tunnel equalize, returning to what passes for normal down here. Not that Nox is /pleased/ but she is at least no longer considering unpleasantness--that can be assumed when the hulking mass blocking the tunnel dissipates. When Tatters steps forward, her shadow follows, appearing as the silhouette of a woman with short hair against the wall. Arms folded, head tilted at a slight angle, she watches the unwrapping in silence. Or perhaps she's watching Jim. Or Murphy. Not having visible eyes makes it difficult to tell. "One suspects, Mister Law, that you have perhaps becomes far too emotionally involved in what you had described to me as a simple business deal. Again, the choice is not yours. There's a reason we're down here," the shadow murmurs--without apparent emotion. "Of /course/ I'll fricking rewrap it." Now it's Tatters' turn to look insulted. She glares at Murphy as she takes the package, continuing her task without a further word. She shrugs off her backpack and digs a multitool and a roll of half-width duct tape out of a pocket, zipping it up and tossing the pack to Nox as she sits down with her back to the tunnel wall and flicks the knife open, carefully cutting the tape and unwrapping the package to cause as little damage as possible, pulling it open like a square, brightly colored flower. The tablet gets a quick look over, its handler suppressing a comment about the parents' choice of model -- not the time, Jill. She turns it over in her hands, then holds it at arm's length and sighs heavily, squeezing an eye closed as she pressed the power button to turn it on...and a few seconds later as the cheerful startup screen casts a pale light across the tunnel and the item /doesn't/ blow up in her face, she smiles in relief and swipes a fingertip over the surface, browsing a few menu options before she turns it back off. The credit card gets pulled from its cardboard sleeve and gets a quick look over. Then the items go back on her lap, and Tatters spends a further moment giving her calloused hands a good, close look, her eyes drifting closed as she looks inwards for a few seconds, just to be sure. But then her eyes open again and she nods up to Nox, then up to the two investigators. "Alright, I think it's clean." The package is folded back up as carefully as she can, and sealed with a few strips of duct tape. With a groan, she climbs to her feet and tucks the slim package under her elbow. "Okay, gents." Blink. "Uh, gent-esques. I'll make sure the kid gets this. If you want to talk to us again, leave a message at like, uh, Evolve or something. You know where that is? I'll do the same, if he wants your letter. But /please/ don't come down here again, it's not terribly, like, safe." Jim mostly plays the straight man here - leaning against the wall with ankles crossed, the mossiness he's picked up matches the faint green layer of growth accumulating in the deeper wells and cracks in the walls and ground, apathetic counterpoint to Murphy's existential fury. Relaxed but curious, he scratches his knuckles against the corner of his jaw. "'ppreciate it," he reaches up mildly to tip his hat to Tatter's Words of Wisdom. "Let's shake a leg, Murph. Miss Nox. /You/ guys need anything upside," he plucks out a card. It could negotiably be described as 'business', printed on cheap cardstock in free Garamond font face: James Morgan. Private Investigating. A phone number. A fax. No email. No address. Fits right in. "Us freaks gotta stick together." "You're goddamn *right* I'm emotionally fucking involved! I'm wading in a fucking *sewage pipe* trying to convince two people hiding down here to deliver a two-month-late Christmas present to the kid who lives with them, except one of them's gotta open it first to make sure there ain't a fucking *BOMB* inside! And you know what the worst fucking part is? The part that's just fucking *killing* me?" Murphy goes for his cigarette, now, while Tatters opens the present and inspects it. If you look carefully, you might see the slightest hint of a tremor in his usually smooth hand. "*YOU* ain't the ones who're bein' irrational. No, *you* people are acting perfectly sane and reasonable given the circumstances. *I'M* the one who's down here acting like a fucking lunatic. How the fuck does that even happen? How the fuck did we get to this point--with--kids in the fucking *sewers*?" He's ranting to the darkness. But he seems to have peaked; there's no more bark to him. Just bite. And he swore off his bite a long time ago. He pulls out his lighter. Starts flicking it to no avail. "Fucking... fuck. Just, fuck it. Just offer him the goddamn present. *Please*." That last word almost sounds pleading. "Yeah. Right," he responds to Jim. "I need to get out of here. Or I swear to God I'm gonna start packing again." Oh, no. You *definitely* don't want Murphy to go back to packing. Alcoholics should never drink, and Murphy should *never* carry a gun. He moves with Jim toward the exit, still trying to light his lighter. With Tatters carrying the gift, Nox slides down the floor and up the other wall to take the card being offered by Jim. Her hand remains two-dimensional as it's plucked from his fingers, studied and then palmed so it disappears into darkness. "You breed like mushrooms," is her lone comment on his chosen field of expertise. Her head dips a little closer to the calmer of the two PIs. "Please do see to your friend. I apologize for the scare." If she has an opinion on Murphy's ranting, it's kept to herself. The woman disappears by blending into the shadow cast by Tatters, her and Jim's card both. Tatters /leans/ over to get a good look at Jim's card, studiously ignoring Murphy's rant. It doesn't seem like it needs a response, honestly. As she reads the words in the gloom in the second before it vanishes into Nox's grip, she cracks a smile and taps a finger to her temple in salute. "Right. Later, Dicks." CAUSE SHE'S FUNNY, SEE? A moment later, though, she calls out a "Hoy!" and shuffles the package to her other arm, digging out a Bic lighter from her pocket and flicking it experimentally; at the sight of the flame she nods, and tosses it to Murphy with a shrug. "Keep it. But man, those'll kill you." Is she talking about cigarettes, or guns? WHO KNOWS, IT'S AMBIGUOUS, THEY BOTH MIGHT. Suddenly cheerful, she turns on her heel and strolls off, snagging her weapon as she passes it and whistling something off-key as she heads around the corner. "Gotta be a lot of us," Jim calls back amiably over his shoulder, fitting one of his own cigarettes into the corner of his mouth, "It's the only way t'keep from getting killed off!" Case in point, really. He catches after Tatter's lighter, using it first for himself and then flicking a flame up for Murphy, tossing an arm across his back and giving him a few solid thumps between the shoulders, "/Breathe/, man." Breathe in... your cigarette. "You're not packin' any more than I'm falling off the fucking wagon. What you /need/ is bacon. I know a diner." Murphy relents. And accepts the burning wick. And doesn't talk much after that. The man's got limits; he can only do so much barking before he can't stop himself from biting. Instead, bacon will have to be enough to placate him.