Demons on both sides

[cian_oneill]

The flickering of lights from a passing ambulance illuminated the alley briefly, the vehicle hurrying on its way to a callout somewhere in the suburbs. Cian lowered himself to the ground from the stairs that ran down the wall opposite the portal, adjusting his jacket and scrubbing his fingers through his hair. He scratched his cheek, the slight rasp of stubble a little more common these last few days.

His sound of his footsteps bounced off the walls in a soft echo as he approached the phone booth, the number now known to all who were helping out with the 'watch' being maintained on the portal. The canteen of water he'd left inside earlier was still there and he was soon wiping the back of his hand across his mouth after downing half the contents. The weather was warming up, and his patrol earlier had meant he hadn't had time to eat, or have anything to drink before heading up from the Cove.

The protective shield the old witch had put up seemed to be holding, and Cian couldn't help but wonder how long it could be maintained, and whether it would last as long as the portal. It had stopped anything from the portal escaping out of the alley, but didn't prevent anyone from this world from passing through it.

He heard something behind him and turned, hand already moving to the weapons stashed behind the phone box, eyes flickering with gold flecks momentarily.

Comments

[primordial_visitation]

Sabra wasn't exactly soundless. To be able to land on your feet, like a cat, was one thing, but doing so in silence was quite another. Then again, she had yet to find a reason to want to be.

Had made her way there via the roofs. Preferred it that way, sometimes. Like a hawk, it allowed for everything below to be more easily taken in. On occasion, making her way inside a venue of interest. Curiosity, perhaps. Or a deliberate need to educate herself on something. It was how the note had reached her. An employee deciding she more or less fitted the required description of who to give it to.

But she had yet to know why this meeting had been called. Why she was directed to come here.

"The sky-fire," the visitor mentioned, straightening posture as she decided to make her way closer. Body language watchful, yet confident. "You were there when it landed... When it hatched. I remember you from there."

[cian_oneill]

Cian's stance eased a little, and he wondered if she had followed him across the rooftops, or had been up there when he had shifted back at the end of his patrol. It was easier to do so as Siofra, and now that the link from his two conscious minds was growing day by day.

He nodded slowly as vague recognition came to him from that night he'd chosen to file in the 'too hard' basket for understanding. The first time he'd even thought about it since then was when Echo talked about it during her visit to him at the Cove just recently.

"Aye."

He was still wary, his senses about her, and that night, still fuzzy and vague, but his attention returned to the portal down the alley.

"Y' know anything about this?" he asked, not one for small talk. So far their searching for answers had drawn very little information, and even the old witch hadn't come up with anything of substance.

[primordial_visitation]

The brunette's head weaved in the portal's direction and she seemed to act like a snake who had suddenly heard a charmer's melody. The vertebrae of her spine stiffening as she faced the source of the shape-shifter's bewilderment.

"A door," she observed, making her way closer still. "A window..." A hand reached up, palm facing outwards. Sensing. Getting the measure of it. "A bridge."

With that, she turned head, looking back at him. No smile. She had rarely ever exhibited one in this world and probably never had where she came from. Not that he had reason to yet know of anything about that.

"I remember another... Not like this. Different. From the other side..." Her gaze returned to it, slowly looking the shape up and down. Curiosity flaring. "It tricked me. Anchored me within flesh not of my own..."

Tongue darted from one side of her mouth to the other in studied contemplation. A long sniff being taken of the portal's gateway. Turning back to him, once again.

"Did you make this?"

[cian_oneill]

"Me?" He huffed a dry laugh, once the surprise had rapidly dissipated. "No." He was still figuring out the whole 'anchored me within flesh not my own' comment, and whether that meant she was a body snatcher, or what. After seeing the two skinned-alive faces on the first night the portal had appeared he had heard a few more tales and descriptions of the types of things that happened in the vicinity of these types of events.

Clearly the woman knew as little as they all did about where it came from, or who created it.

"What do you mean it tricked you? Y' talking about the portal, or whoever made it?"

[primordial_visitation]

"The other," she reminded. "This one smells different... There were humans. They thought they knew what they would summon. They did not."

Something flickered across the face she now wore. An externalisation of emotional reflection.

"There was a glistening in the dark... It made me curious. Then I was pulled in. I would have dwarfed this body before," she decided, looking momentarily down at an upturned hand. Then back to him, again. "Those who dwell beyond this... They see here as a glistening, too. Many fear light. Others will not."

[cian_oneill]

"So let me get this straight. You're sayin' y' came through one of these portals, that w' opened by someone here, and you're now... trapped, in that body, 'nd y' don't know who did it, or why, or how to go back?"

His eyes darted down to where the blood from the beast Daniel stabbed darkened the ground, then back up to her. From what she said she could easily have been something similar, but was forced into the body she was now inhabiting.

"'nd that portal is attracting more o' them, and will till we figure out how to close it?"

[primordial_visitation]

"The body was the portal," the demoness clarified. Her typical manner of speech, however, had her saying it as though it should be the most obvious thing in the world. Social interaction and the subtleties thereof, were not her strong point. "No... I don't know how to go back. And this form offers little protection if I could."

To a student of body language, the way Sabra's gaze tracked his movements came across as predatory. It was simply the way she was. Confident, yet watchful. An alpha carnivore who seemed to fear little, but who apparently still felt unfamiliar in this new world.

"Open a door, something will come through... And this has been open long. You think all visitors will have flesh? That they will bleed? They will not..."

[cian_oneill]

The body was the portal...

Cian's senses were keeping him from turning away from her, not trusting her in the slightest. Her behaviour, and declaration, heightened that sense of distrust.

He'd already heard from the old witch that the couple up the street were probably victims of a pair of demons who didn't have corporeal form in this world, and were using those faces to aid in giving them form. And the demon that had nearly decapitated the vampire was of another kind completely, she had confirmed, and led her to believe the door wasn't actually opened to just one other dimension, that it could be opening on different ones, then moving on, randomly, which in a way was saving them from being inundated as it was only by chance any were finding it before it disappeared again, moved on to another realm.

She was working on finding a way to close it, and for the time being, at least containing anything that might venture through the opening, and into the alleyway.

"I don't think anything of a kind, I've seen what some will do," he told her, "though one did." He pointed to the dark patch on the ground. "Bleed that is." He eyed her warily before asking, "other th'n curiosity, what brought you here? Y' thinkin' y' might go see if it's a way back?"

[primordial_visitation]

Though having spoken in warning, it was his mention of knowing what havoc such things could wreak. For the first time, a ghost of a smirk crossing her lips.

Temptation.

"You summoned me," she answered, clear as glass. "I hadn't known you had possession of... Such a thing."

It wasn't so much a seductive look which punctuated that sentence, as something more akin to a Tyrannosaur's eyeing of prey. Sabra casting her gaze back to the portal in either admiration or desire. There was want there. But just as quickly, the same sentiment seemed to be discarded, for she could not use it.

"As I said, this body would be of poor use, were I to do so. I would need... Release, first. Until then, your realm is my captivity."

A pause of consideration.

"Or do you suggest I use it? That I gain myself an army?"

[cian_oneill]

Cian frowned, not sure what she expected him to say.

"I didn't summon you, and I don't suggest anything'," he replied, a little confused. "I w' just lettin' people know, in case anyone knew how to deal wi' it." He indicated the portal, a little wary of her suggestion, and her. "Y' c'n do what y' like, go through, not go through, but if y' thinkin' of tryin' t' bring through trouble, I'll warn y' we're not real keen on trouble comin' here. We've enough t' deal with as it is."

[primordial_visitation]

Sabra's eyes narrowed. Of course she had been summoned. Her presence had been requested. Or had he interpreted it as meaning ceremonial magic? To the reanimated possessed brunette, there was no difference.

"Why?"

It was a child's question, but no less valid. In human terms, she hadn't really been 'born' too long ago. Not in this body, anyway.

A step closer and she repeated, "Why? Why would you defend those who would care nothing for you? Your kind?"

Re: Demons on both sides

[cian_oneill]

It was a good question, one he'd heard asked of and by others, but never by him. He'd not asked for his 'demon', the attack on the moor was something he'd never forget, unprovoked, but also unchangeable. And he knew if it hadn't been for Annie he'd probably be dead now, the woman having protected him, and the village from who he became, until he could do so himself.

So his guardianship, the protection of those who didn't know any better wasn't something new to him. His ability to control what he was became his own protection, and by extension, theirs too.

"Does it matter?" he said, standing his ground. His shoulders were loose, hands hanging by his sides as he watched her closely. He had no real idea of her type, or what threat she presented, and eyed her warily. "What were y', before they trapped y' like that?"

Didn't get notification - sorry!

[primordial_visitation]

"It matters... All you do matters. To obligate yourself as guardian to another especially matters."

Sabra's entire face was a disguise. This was not her body. It was a temporary vessel. Nevertheless, the expression she wore was true - and it looked like she had just been threatened with a slap from a wet fish.

Because compassion was an alien concept.

"I was..." Sabra's expression shifted like an emotional rainbow as she struggled to convey the answer. What was she? It was difficult to express. "Different," she offered. "Larger... I swam."