Mon Sep 4 - Thomas Street

[Delores Brown]

Breathing heavily, Delores manages to shake herself out of the funk she was in. She stares wildly at Dex, her eyes focussing on the blood dripping from his hand. Trying to banish the sight of the snarling fangs from her mind, she pulls one of the towels from the towel rail and shakily starts to tie it around Dex's wrist, leaning against him as she does so, as if trying to shelter herself from recent events.

She looks up from knotted towel and says suddenly, "Marlene? Where did she go? We need to find her Dex!"

OOC,A thousand apologies for my lack of posts - real life has rather got in the way of late. And in the middle of the action scene as well! :oops:

[Gaffer]

OOC,Sorry to do some NPCing here, folks, but I'm getting ready for my trip tomorrow and wanted to give you all something to play with over the weekend. And you should rerad Langdon's Tue May 11, 2010 1:19 pm post now that I've removed the spoilers. It's a pip.

Rolls,Dex First Aid roll: 3=3 vs 4 target; [color=#FF4000]FAIL[/color] Delores First Aid roll: 5=5 vs 3 target; [color=#FF4000]PASS[/color]

Dex finds the iodine in the medicine cabinet. Holding his arm over the basin, Delores pours most of the bottle's contents over his wrist. The sting takes his mind off the throbbing ache underlying it. The towel Delores wraps around Dex's wrist slows the bleeding to a slow seep along each of the several lacerations and from the multiple punctures.

Franky closes the bedroom door and proceeds to the kitchen. Shoving the door open, pistol poised, he finds Langdon alone, sprawled in a chair at the kitchen table with a glass of water held in both hands. His bow tie is undone, his collar open, his jacket flung over another chair. His hair is matted with sweat and his shirt is damp. His eyes seem a bit unfocused. "Merivana Azaff," he says.

[FrankyEsposito]

OOC,Sorry about that -- seems the board has stopped sending notifications again.

Gun clenched in both hands, I clear the room. Where can this dame have gotten to? I spare a quick glance at Langdon -- he doesn't look so good -- then back to scanning to see where 'Marlene' could have gone.

"Vilas? You alright? Which way did she go?"

[Langdon]

"Wha-" Straightening up in the chair, looking pale, hands trembling just slightly as I button up my shirt. "Who? Dolores? I thought she was with you? She's alright, isn't she?"

I lean forward, hands pushing against the table because my legs just don't want to do the work of standing up. Then I slump back. "You were right. Marlene is not Marlene. She's Mericana Azaff. And... " I start blankly at the wall for a moment, eyes watering, shivering as if shaking off a terrible nightmare. "...she..." oh god there's no right word for this "...left. Sh'es gone."

[FrankyEsposito]

I snap another quick look back at Langdon -- has he lost his marbles?

"I know she's gone, damn it. Which way did she go?

[Dexter Ford]

Dex looks to Delores, still feeling the broken bits and the blood seeping, gritting his teeth against the pain.

"Kitchen or living room maybe...but I am still worried about the dog. Or whatever the hell that thing is..."

Dex waits to follow Delores, somewhat losing control of his focus as the pain sets in and the adrenalin fades.

[Gaffer]

OOC,Go ahead and look for "Marlene." You won't find her in the apartment. (And the back door in the kitchen is bolted from the inside.) Esposito hears the sound of a car starting in the alley below the kitchen, looking out, he sees a red coupe turning into the street. In the hallway, all the puddles and splashes of the beast's blood have evaporated, the surface of the floorboards bleached and pitted. The rug in the bedroom has a hole eaten through it. Listen to Langdon's story. Let Dex show you the evidence they uncovered last night. When you gather up the two photographs, each has writing on the back: "Alphonse, 1930" and "Marlene, 1930."

[Langdon]

Clearly unsettled, I point to the back wall of the kitchen. "You won't believe me, but I swear by god she went through that wall." I struggle to get up and just sit back down. "She said something strange... 'Eat a hire. Kiss him.' You don't think she means to eat me, do you? ...and then the wall was gone, and there was" I shudder and swallow hard, "there was this city. Oh god it was horrible. And she just sank right into it, through the wall..."

[FrankyEsposito]

The kid has definitely lost his marbles. Right? Right?

"Anybody see a telephone in this joint?"

Once I find a phone I call in her plate number. I also tell them to use extreme caution -- despite appearances she's armed and very dangerous.

[Delores Brown]

Delores pushes out of the bathroom, quickly scans the hall to make sure the dog has definitely gone and follows the sound of voices to the kitchen. She enters in time to hear 'And she just sank right into it, through the wall...'. She glances around then looks back at Langdon. "Where's 'Marlene' gone? Did you let her get away?"

[Dexter Ford]

Dex stumbles along behind Delores as she heads to the kitchen. His revolver is jammed into his waistband, his shirt untucked, missing one sleeve, the other arm swelling and turning a bit black and blue from the break. He craddles the hand cautiously. Dex looks at all of them. "Is she dead, Langdon? Or did she escape?" He looked at the detective, but his question was for Langdon. "Now do you believe she isn't who she says she is? Do we ALL agree she has a lot to answer for?"

Dex then slumps down to the floor, pointing out the scratches marks on the kitchen tile. "There's all the evidence we need that she and that damned dog were here once before. I think I need a doctor. Damn, this hurts as much as getting shot by one of Capone's boys."

[Langdon]

I snap at Delores, "No. Miss Brown. I didn't let her get away." my legs tremble as I struggle into a standing position, leaning heavily on the table for support. "She vanished. Impossibly." I stagger over to the wall. Pounding on it with each word for emphasis. "Through. This. Wall."

I almost lean against the wall to hold myself up, then recall what I'd seen, and rest against the counter instead. "I believe you all now. She's not Marlene Hirt. She said her name was Merivana Azaff." I lurch to the center of the kitchen where we had been standing. "Then she kissed me and said 'Eat a hire. Kiss him.'" I gesture at the back wall. "Then the wall disappeared, like a window on a strange city. And Merivana ...shrank..." unsure of what word to use to describe that impossible movement, "into it. And then she was gone."

[Gaffer]

Franky,It will take a little while to trace the registration of the coupe. They'll call you back at this number. But the name "Merivana [b]Azaff[/b] rings a bell, something from the Suydam case.

Dex,Something about Langdon's story rings a bell; maybe something from that book.

Delores,Something about Langdon's story rings a bell; maybe something from those books.

As Esposito hangs up the phone in the study, the door buzzer sounds in short staccato bursts, clearly heard by Langdon, Delores and Dex in the kitchen. Esposito left the back door open after looking out to see the red coupe, then hurrying off to the phone.

A faint smell of cordite hangs in the air, dispersing in the breeze from the back door. In the hallway, the puddles and splashes of the beast's blood have evaporated, leaving the surface of the floorboards bleached and pitted. The bedroom door is closed, but the bullet hole in the door frame is still visible.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex shakes his head, still sitting on the floor, cradling his damaged arm. "Langdon, are you sure she said 'eat a hire kiss him'? I am not sure, but those don't sound like the words she might have actually said. I wonder if it is something in Arabic, something from one of the books I read?" Dex closes his eyes for a moment and tries to recall something from the musty books he had been reading.

[Langdon]

"I hope that's not what she said, Dex. Think about it. Eat a hire. Who's the hire? Me! And who did she kiss?" If I weren't already so pale, I'd be paler.

OOC,I'd like to spend a point of languages to be able to identify and understand what she said. Perhaps at the time I was simply too much in shock and terrified to realize what she was really saying

[FrankyEsposito]

Something Langdon said itches my brain. I take out my notebook and start flipping through it.

"Vilas, what did you say her name was?"

[Langdon]

I take a deep breath, "Merivana Azaff." Then exhale slowly and fully.

[FrankyEsposito]

"Azaff... Azaff... Yes, here it is! Hinderin Azaff, convicted in the Suydam case. Died in prison in 1930. This dame could be his daughter, I suppose. If that's really her name."

I head back to the phone to call in and see if she has a record.

[Gaffer]

The buzzing becomes more insistent and is joined by a continuous knocking. Then Myron Hirsch's nasally voice is added: "Miss Hirt? Miss Hirt, are you alright? Miss Hirt?!"

Langdon,As you think about it more calmly, it wasn't so much English words as phonetic syllables. They might mean anything.

[Delores Brown]

"I read something in one of those books," said Delores thoughtfully, "Something about a cult beleiving that they could creat a... ... pathway... ... to another city..." She looked at Langdon keenly. "Describe to me what you saw."