ArchivedLogs:Digging Up Ghosts

Digging Up Ghosts
Dramatis Personae Murphy, Nox
In Absentia	2013-02-11 In his pursuit of a missing child case (Victor Borkowski), Murphy ends up intruding in Morlock space and squaring off with the spooky shadow-manipulator, Nox.
Location Sewers
There are certain protocols when it comes to entering a place you are not supposed to be. Certain patterns of behavior--for example, one is usually supposed to skulk. A ski-mask is also quite typical. Frankly, Murphy Law is of the opinion that protocol can go fuck itself. Skulking is stupid, and ski-masks are for amateurs. What if you get caught? If you're skulking around in a ski-mask, you can't really say you just got lost, can you? But if you're strutting about like you own the place--in a dirty, smelly suit you just bought off a hobo for your own clean coat and an extra 50 for the trouble--if you smell like feces, and act just a little deranged--then nobody's going to wonder what the hell you're doing there. And if they do, just start reciting all the entries in the phonebook--in reverse order. They'll assume you're just part of the scenery. Most people won't even acknowledge that you exist. That's Murphy's tact. He pops down into the sewer grate without even the slightest attempt at indiscretion. He's wearing a coat that smells like it's been dragged through the back-end of a sewage factory, and he's got that cock-eyed look that people wear when they're about five seconds away from hitting something--everything about the man says 'Stay Away, Might Be Dangerous'. But if you're careful--if you look closely--you can see the signs that it's a lie. His nails are too clean cut; his face, though unshaven, is a little too trim. The smudges of dirt are on his clothes, not his skin. And though his coat smells like shit, *he* doesn't. "Fucking sewers," he rumbles under his breath, barely audible. Then he grunts, staring at the darkness--giving his eyes a moment to adjust. It wouldn't be the first time a bum has decided to take sanctuary down in the tunnels. It's actually commonplace, this time of year, when the snow is piled high and grey-black with city soot. Were this any other tunnel, the most trouble Murphy could expect to find would be other hobos or maybe a city worker, puffed up with authority, ordering him out. But this isn't any other tunnel. This is /the/ tunnel, the important tunnel, the tunnel that leads...elsewhere. It is a guarded tunnel but the guardian isn't immediately evident. Instead of hobo-moans or the sweep of a flashlight, Murphy is greeted with that pervading darkness, the sound of water dripping somewhere distant and a sense of weight in the chilly air--all of the earth around him, all of the earth above, it thrums in the atmosphere. Tunnels are never empty, even when they are. Staring straight ahead has little effect. The wall nearest to him becomes more visible, sweeping in an arc above his head, decorated with dead moss and the scrawl of grafitti. But there is nothing ahead but more shadow--heavy, impenetrable, patient. Murphy grunts, peering at the shadows--at the wall. Before he went down here, he took the liberty of paying a visit to the city's record hall--and doing a quick scan of the sewer system. He's now got an entire map of New York City's 'underground' locked inside of his brain--something that's probably going to come handy when it comes to making his way through here. But even with that, there's the very real danger that the reality does not perfectly fit the blueprints. That, and... something about the place gives him the woolies. He's heard stories--just a bunch of shit, as far as he can figure. But shit always flows from somewhere, and he's got concerns about this particular flow's source. Nevertheless, he's on the job. And more importantly--perhaps *most* importantly--the rumors he's been hearing are... interesting. And Murphy Law *cannot* resist an interesting thing. He steps forward, straight toward that tunnel--giving a little swagger as he does. Like he's not quite drunk, but not quite sober. Plunging headlong into the darkness--using the memory of the blueprints and their precise tunnel measurements to guide his footfalls. According to those blueprints, this is a straight but narrow stretch of tunnel. Ten meters ahead there's an access hatch to the right; four meters behind that, a T-junction that leads down if he goes left and towards a subway tunnel if he goes right. Easy peasy, right? He is allowed about six steps, long enough for the darkness to close in around him. This is the point where his eyes should adjust to allow poor to middling sight--enough to tell where the floor is, where the ceiling and walls are. Maybe even an emergency light, if the junkies haven't broken it. But no, the darkness literally closes in around him. It's a little like walking into a wall without there being a wall there. Forward progress is stymied. So too is retreat, if he makes the effort to step backwards. "You aren't supposed to be down here." It's just a whisper, barely audible, too soft to discern direction or gender. It comes from around, behind, ahead, with the echoing quality of any hiss of voice made underground. Murphy Law stiffens when the darkness comes to life, swelling around him. His fists clench--his feet shift apart. One hand moves with aching slowness to one of the coat's oversized pockets--he shoved a big, heavy, nasty looking flashlight there. In times of need, it doubles as a club. "Ghosts," he babbles weakly, jerking his head down, bobbing it in the darkness--trying to keep up the fib of just being some confused, wandering hobo. Even as his fingers brush across the base of that hidden flashlight. His other hand clenching and unclenching. "Ghosts in the sewers... looking for Victor." It's a calculated statement. Most people wouldn't look twice at the name; they'd dismiss it as babble. But when he says it, he's listening--looking--eyes narrowing as he searches for the shape of that thickening darkness. Trying to register if there's a reaction. Then again, how the hell can you tell if darkness is 'reacting'? There is a distant hum. Possibly a train going by somewhere out there, where there's still light and people. The sound of water dripping has faded. It's grown so dark that it's difficult to tell if one's eyes are open or not. It would seem, for the moment, that 'reaction' equals waiting. Then something cold and velvet brushes his wrist, just above where his hand disappears into his pocket. "Ah ah ah," the whisper chides. "Manners. You aren't supposed to be down here. This isn't a place to go looking." Silence again. Then, quieter still, "Something might find you." Well, fuck it. The darkness seems to know the score. Murphy drops the act. His shoulders slump; he resumes his standard posture--the 'I-Don't-Really-Give-A-Fuck' stance. His fingers move away from that big, heavy pocket. Reaching, instead, for his pant pocket--a small brass lighter in it. One emblazoned with the Marine Corps insignia. Unless something stops him--or warns him--he slowly pulls it out. Despite being smothered in that darkness--unable to move forward or back--there's a brazen fearlessness in his attitude. Yeah, so he's at some shadow's mercy. But he's pretty sure that if this thing wanted him dead, he'd already be dead. "Alright," he grunts, his voice now clear. "So, no fucking way you're a ghost, because ghosts are just a bunch of horseshit. You must be a mutant." A pause, then: "I ain't here to ruin anybody's day. Just looking for somebody. A kid. Want to make sure he's okay." Apparently not giving a fuck is the way to go. Or maybe it's the lighter. Either way, the sense of being closed in on lessens. It doesn't grow any easier to see but Murphy is no longer being body-hugged by shadows. There's light behind, through the grate he'd crawled through. There's none ahead, however. /That/ wall stays firmly in place. "Ah, skeptics," his guardian murmurs, sound very lightly amused. There's a feminine note to that response, a hint of gender finally surfacing. "How we do love them. What if I were to say that I am here with the sole purpose to ruin days? You shouldn't be here. Here there be dragons, and worse, friend. You would do better to turn around instead of pursuing this...what was his name? This Victor? This boy." "See, that's the thing about warnings," Murphy says, lifting the lighter up in front of him. "It's the fuckers who *don't* give 'em that you've got to watch for. If you were here just to ruin my day, we wouldn't be having this conversation." His eyes narrow, staring at that solid wall of shadow up ahead. He snaps the lighter--there's a flash of gold, illumination stabbing outward--briefly casting his face in a metallic, harsh glow. "Victor Borkowski. Fourteen. Cute kid. Likes computers, basketball, frisbee. Green. Has scales." He grunts, before adding: "Nice parents, too. But I'm not gonna start the next conversation with them by sayin', 'Well, I might have found your boy, but there was this scary shadow-lady who warned me about dragons...'" The lighter has the desired effect. The shadows fold backwards to drape against walls and floor. They play at the edges of the warm orange glow the flame creates--there on the edge between the two, there's a dance as if the darkness were a child reaching towards the fire before retreating with singed fingers. "Tch." A mild scolding, as such things go. Up ahead where it's still dark enough to allow such a thing, a figure rises up from the floor. Average height, though the dimensions are somewhat fuzzy. The lighter's glow bounces off of two sparks that might be eyes looking back at the man in the tunnel. "Perhaps I am a lonely ghost. A bored mutant? Perhaps we play with our prey before we eat it. I spoke truth, friend, you shouldn't be here. There are dragons. Monsters. Worse. And there is me." Two dark arms spread away from the central shadow. There is she--where there is of her. "I have heard the nice parents story before, I'm afraid. I have one of my own, in fact. I'm sure you do as well. I am no less lonely, no less bored." Murphy is clearly interested in the way that the darkness reacts. He is, in fact, *fascinated* by it--to the point that one may wonder exactly where the man's priorities may lie. Trapped in the darkness with a mutant capable of manipulating shadows, and the one thing he's paying more attention to anything else is the nature of her power. It's only when the figure begins to rise that he *drags* his gaze away--lifting the lighter higher, eyes squinting to make out that shape that lurks in the shadows. It's rare he encounters something he doesn't understand. Being completely in the dark about something--it clearly draws him. He has to resist the impulse just to move toward her. "I shouldn't be *anywhere*, lady. Being places where I don't belong is my job. So is finding things that don't want to be found. If it helps, his parents don't need to know where he is. They don't even need to talk with him. They just want to know he's *alive*." Without thinking, his foot moves forward--the lighter bobs closer. At the last second, he pulls it back. "Light hurt you?" One step forward and the it--she--retreats a foot back. But at the same time, the shadow that hugs the walls behind him extends to firmly tap the man on the shoulder before snapping back into place. "First you make assumptions about my capabilities," the whispers say, all around him, dancing on the edges between light and not light. "Then you make inquiries into what might hurt me. If I weren't a lady I might accuse you of searching for weaknesses, friend. That seems rather rude of someone in your position." Because the light at the end of the tunnel, the /escape/ capable end of the tunnel, is now fading. For now, it's as if a cloud went over the sun--but the threat is clear enough, even to the very fascinated. "Let's pretend for a moment that you're a gentleman." The shape facing him rearranges itself. One moment it's standing there, arms spread wide, the next it's pressing what is presumably a shoulder against the wall. The lean it adopts is deliberately lazy. "If you were a gentleman, what would be the proper thing to do in this moment? Seeing as how you have come into my parlor without invitation." He responds by snapping the lighter closed. And then, without missing a beat, he tosses it--straight into a nearby puddle. It makes a little *plop* and *clink* as it lands--getting itself thoroughly soaked in the process. His other hand moves--*very* slowly--toward that larger pocket. If she makes no move to halt him, he extracts the flashlight--again, *very* slowly--and gently lobs it behind him. Back the way it came. And then, very slowly, he raises his hands upward... and takes a single step toward the ever-shifting, ever-changing image of her. Away from the exit behind him--even as it grows darker and more distant. And as he does so, he begins to speak: "I don't know you. I don't know what you're capable of. But here's what I *do* know: You're putting a lot of effort into scaring me off--when I'm pretty damn sure you could kill me without much effort." "You figured I had that flashlight in my pocket, so I'm guessing you can tell what else I got on me. But just in case." He shrugs the coat off. Underneath, a loose fitting blue collar shirt--buttoned up. Work slacks. Sleeves rolled up. No obvious bulges beyond his wallet--no sign of a gun. "I'm wagering you ain't the killing sort. Not at least when you can help it. Maybe I'm wrong. Well, I'm willing to find out." This disarming is presumably observed with interest. She makes no move to interfere, neither to encourage or discourage the effort. If he is listening as carefully as he is moving, Murphy would hear that hum again. Not a train but rather a vibration that travels through the cobweb of shadow draped through the tunnel. She might be laughing. "I didn't know what you had in your pocket until you showed me, sir, but the answer I was looking for was "I apologize, miss, and I promise not to intrude again"," she tells him. "Though a flashlight seemed the logical conclusion. Do please stop undressing." As he steps forward, the figure leaning against the wall remains as it is. But that is the decoy. A hand appears, darker than charcoal, palm out and centered on his chest to stop him. The hand leads to a wrist and an arm that are equally sooty, a gently rounded shoulder, a neck, a head. Those two sparks of reflected light are closer now, and definitely eyes. No other features are visible. "If you are searching for the boy, why are you tweaking death's nose? Unless you think I have him in a pocket. Shall I make it easy for you? I have no pockets." The hand startles him; it's enough to prompt him to stop, at least. Despite his surprise, he manages a grin at the comment about undressing--teeth flashing in what little light remains. "If I had a dollar for every woman who's said that to... Uh. Nevermind." Getting cheeky might not be the right approach. He peers at what little of her he can make out. Those sparks, particularly. Eyebrows knotting together--grinding like gears in some immense calculating machine. Like he's trying to solve her for X--figure her out, *understand* her. "Mom always told me I had a delayed sense of self-preservation. Birth defect, I guess." "Look, I get it. I *think* I do, anyway. Kid's a runaway. You probably figure he had damn good reasons to be one. I'm not aimin' to disagree. I just want to make sure he's not a corpse. And if he's alive, give him a letter from his parents. I'm just too damn stupid to stop looking." "You may have heard this line as well: You are very brave or very stupid." The hand withdraws and her head dips forward. Ordinarily, if she were dipping into the light, this would bring her features into focus. Instead, they just become darker and more defined--a visible face, capable of expression. The current one? Mild disapproval. "There's an answer to that line and it is named "over-confident"." Nox then spends a moment studying him, though surely she's already had opportunity to look her fill. Those points of light move, at least, in the way eyes would when taking in the details of someone's face. "You have too many nightmares to be crossing swords with shadows, friend," she finally says. That sounds like a dismissal, until she follows it with, "Do you have a card?" He opens his mouth to say something at the 'over-confident' bit, then snaps it shut. Instead, he just continues to watch her--gears continuing to grind. He can barely make out those features in the darkness--but something about his eyes. Like they're etching everything they see into stone. "...card. Right. Yeah." As if he's just remembering where he is. His hand moves, shifting; he pulls out his wallet, dragging out one of the bedraggled, old business cards he had printed two or three months ago. Back when he first started on this gig. 'MURPHY LAW: Private Detective'. A number and an address. A fax and cell number, too. He holds the card up to her--as if unsure how to proceed. The whole situation feels surreal; like he's handing a business card to a figure of Greek mythology, standing on the threshold of the River Styx. Proceeding is simple--she plucks the card from his hand and palms it, making it disappear. It reappears a moment later, held by the lazing figure that lingers off to the side. It, and the card, are posed as if the details written on the cardstock are being read. "Ah, he learns," she comments in the meantime. Oh yes, she noticed that interrupted impulse to speak. It causes her expression to shift, the sketch that is her mouth curling in a faint smile before she draws back and fades out into the general gloom again. "So, having safely made the assumption that I am not a ghost, that I wouldn't kill you, that I was lying about the dragons...what leads you to believe that I know this boy? What leads you to believe that he is in these tunnels, so well guarded? These are not the usual haunts of fourteen year old boys. Even green ones." He watches, clearly perplexed by the manner in which she manipulates the card in the darkness. "Green kid hitchhiking his way across the country's bound to stick in a few folks' memories. Last detective his parents hired followed the trail to here, but couldn't find him. Friend of a friend of a friend recommended me to his folks to pick up the trail. Looked into it, rustled up some haunts. Heard some stories about known mutants getting kicked out of that shelter in December. Apparently, one or two of the ones who couldn't pass for normies went into the sewers. Some even said there was a bunch of 'em down there. Figured it for horseshit, but I thought--I've seen some stranger things." "I don't know if he's down here. For all I know, he might have left New York. For all I *really* know, he might be dead. But this was the only place the last guy didn't bother to look--so I thought, what the hell? Worse that happens is I leave a handsome corpse." "I don't know if you know him. But I know you can tell that this is only gonna end two ways: Either I'm going to make sure the kid's okay, or I'm going to get my stubborn ass killed." He pauses, before adding: "I don't know what you're doing down here. But if he *did* come down here -- if the rumors are true, and people are running here for cover..." He nods at the tunnel she's draped in shadow. "You ever hear of Kali?" "You seem to find a great many things to be horseshit. But one supposes your mind isn't entirely closed." This comes with a sigh, all around him, the tunnel itself seeming to exhale. She withdraws a little more, gathering all of that darkness into herself. The decoy figure goes, the darker streaks that had crept up the walls behind him leave too. They join with the center until there's the cut-out silhouette of woman standing there, arms crossed, head up. Her hair is moving around her head, too restless to remain as still as the rest of her. Her eyes remain fixed on him. "If you are about to make a joke about either my name or my substance, I must ask you to abstain, Mister Law. Kali, the dark night who comes to men in dreams. I am familiar, yes." Her head tilts slightly to the left. "I am also not amused. I prefer Nox. If the boy is here, then perhaps you'll hear from him. If and perhaps, please make a note." His arms lower to his sides. He watches, reserved and cautious, as the darkness recedes--and takes a slow step back. "Yeah. She's scary as fuck. Dances on the corpses of her enemies. Mouth full of teeth. Blood-thirsty, cruel, vicious. Wears a garland of heads around her neck. But depending on who you ask, there's a reason for all that." He reaches down, then--slowly. To pick up his soaked lighter. The wick will have to be replaced, but otherwise, it should be fine. One thing she might notice, however: Despite the lack of light, he has no trouble finding it. It's like he's always known precisely where it was. "See, she ain't *just* the goddess of blood and death and murder. She's also a mother goddess; the consort of Shiva; a slayer of devils and demons. She's the monster you call when you're neck-deep in monsters. She's the monster who scares all the *other* monsters." He wipes the lighter off on his shirt, drying it. "Nox. I'll remember that. Okay, Nox. I'll heed the warning. And for now, I'll look elsewhere. Maybe I'll find out he never came down here at all. But just so we understand each other: I'm *not* gonna stop looking. The only person in the world who can make me stop looking for that kid is that kid." He's moving toward the exit--slowly backing down the tunnel. Each step, watching her, as if to ensure she isn't going to change her mind and come after him. He's allowed to do all of these things. The silhouette remains as it was, watching. Ever vigilant. She doesn't advance on him in any meaningful way. Perhaps the walls grow darker, where he's walking. Perhaps the sound of the street outside becomes quieter than it should be, though he's drawing closer to the source. Perhaps there are dark shapes inside of the darker whole, visible only at the corners of his vision. They go, if and when he looks. "I'm flattered, I think." Her voice has followed him. It's never lifted above a murmur but it's there, just behind his right shoulder. She sounds as if she's smiling. "One warning for another, friend Law. Don't come down this tunnel again. I might not be here and that would be bad for you. But then, if I am here, that would be worse. As I said. This is my parlor. Do we understand each other?" "Yeah. I understand. Coming down here would be detrimental to my health." He flicks the lighter open, cursing roughly as he drains the sewage out of it. "Goddamn, I ain't ever gonna get this stink out." Once he's far enough, he turns his back to her--then clambors up the sewer grate, one rung at a time. The coat--and the flashlight--are left behind. He needs a fucking shower.