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Nine forty-six. The perfect time for a tipple he couldn't afford anyways. Marmont Pennywise, Esq., drinks his Dream Jar with a slow slurp and looks at the extra shot of espresso he ordered for it. Ana, the bartender of strawberry-blonde locks, didn't think twice at that. It would be a disgusting combination with the vanilla and Swedish punch, but some people just can't resist.
He stubs out his cigarette in a puddle poured into an ashtray. Good Italian coffee gone to waste, the pity. Swabbing a bit of dark silk wrapped around a burnt elder twig, he mutters a few choice words. His finger drums on heavy newspaper, a thick veneer of age yellowing the backdrop. Stories of Los Angeles crime smear as the ink gives under flesh.
"I summon…" The tin coffers overhead glitter and twinkle in the light of those Edison bulbs. His sputtery breath thickens with phlegm. It's always about authority and gumption.
"I summon the Living Shadow!"
He has a moment to look cocky and proud of himself. The moment lasts six seconds. Then a palm collides with the back of his head and slams Marmont's face down into the table.
He starts as an amorphous coil of darkness a few feet from his summoner, as if the lights had all suddenly begun to behave weirdly. The threads of shadow whorl in on themselves , spiralling in and growing more solid…..and then, abruptly, there's a middle-aged man standing there in a white t-shirt, steel blue pyjama pants, leather slippers. Lamont has a vodka martini in one hand and today's paper in the other.
It should make him look absolutely ludicrous. But he's had enough warning in those few heartbeats to reach for his power, and it answers just fine despite the fact that he's not swathed in black and crimson silk. So he's also an absolutely *terrifying* middle aged man in his lounging clothes, gray eyes ablaze with anger, the shadows in the room gathering about him obediently.
His voice isn't a roar or a shout, but a venomous hiss. "Who dares summon me?" he demands.
How Marmont savours his victory ends in a crunch of cartilege and a cry of pain muffled into the polished wood. Blood mingles with espresso and smoke, and the ridiculous twig he clutches ends up hurled off into the blue. Lucifer Morningstar stands behind him, suit pristine, his lidded eyes full of a dangerous, calculating promise. "A fool and his invitation are soon parted," his impeccable English accent cuts sharp and harsh against the softer intimacy of the club.
He's a terrifying middle aged man summoning his power in the middle of Lux.
Gargled curses aren't getting anywhere hard, especially with an unyielding hand putting Marmont's cheek hard to the grain of the wood and not letting up. The Devil has very little patience for violations to his property.
Whereupon Lamont promptly disguises himself. He doesn't vanish, but he blurs recognizability. Most of the onlookers will remember, later, the ridiculousness of a man somehow making his way in so scantily clad….but they won't be able to ID the man in question. Was he blond or brunet, dark eyed or light? No one will agree.
But Lamont does not depart or flee, by means magical or mundane. There is no Strange to gate him away from embarassment. Not that he's the least bit mortified. Too busy being icily enraged. "Who are you?" he asks Marmont, again….and this time there's the pressure of magical coercion behind it. This little penny-ante sorcerer *will* speak. Though he looks up to Lucian, meeting those wet-hyacinth eyes levelly. "If you please,' he says, polite with no hint of grudgingness.
There are sufficient numbers of patrons to notice someone, even if they stand on the mezzanine and not the lower level where gather most of the music fans and the liquor-tippling guests. Here is not for the hoi-polloi, a place reserved to the quiet conversations and dealings proving as much of Lux's lifeblood as they were in other realms.
Lucian, on the other hand, is barely fooled. What darkness stares back at him, the Lightbringer, produces an automatic reaction from the archangel. Those eyes bleed intense flame over dark water, opalescent and leaving blue behind as a long ago memory. Tousled golden hair darkens slightly and the pressure in his hand builds as bone groans and aches under it. Marmont makes a muffled scream, his fight diminished considerably by the pressure applied down upon his windpipe against the table.
There is no Strange to gate away Lamont, but there is someone staring at him unblinking through a lens of eternity, one whose reign heralded punishments of all souls from high to low. Whatever Marmont's screaming is somewhat incoherent as he tries to comply. If only the bleeding Englishman would let him.
He has that little streak of satanic pride of his own. A minor, terrestrial monster before Karma in the form of the Tulku Council got ahold of him and remade him….somewhat. The defiance of a sparrowhawk confronted with a phoenix, puffing up feathers nonetheless. His gaze meets Lucian's and does not waver, even as he plucks the man's name from his mind and stores it away….digging further. How did this man come to summon him….and why was he dumb enough to do it in public. In Lux, no less?
Puffing feathers doesn't much work. Sooner or later the place burns down or turns into a pillow factory that then burns down. And down is particularly effective at exploding.
Lucian curls his lips back slightly, the beginnings of a predator's sweet grin not allowing for the least bit of surrender. He wouldn't know how if someone asked, ready to spit into the eye of the Creator himself. His hand buried in the fellow's short hair doesn't give adeuqate purchase. Now the collar is another story, and he hauls up the unfortunate Esquire with the effortless contempt of a lioness carrying off a nuisance cub.
Why, how: sorcerer, two-bit conjurer in fact, using the dregs of some cheap ritual penned by a practitioner in fucking Kansas City.
Lamont moves to come with him, as if he had every right. He's out to Lucian, out of that particularly dark closet….for whatever value being the Living Shadow might be. And of course, after that glimpse of Lucian's eyes….he's looking again, via his own clouded version of the Sight, trying to divine what Lucian might be.
Poor Marmont. He really hasn't a clue what lies in store for him. Lucian hauls the man free of the table, carried in one hand. Blood runs down the customer's face, and the bruise showing up already from the grained impact. He really isn't in his finest form. The mewling protest from the two-bit conjurer lacks much effect except "Ah'm shorry."
What Lucian is reads like a single, burning wall of nothingness. Irritated, really. He stares at Lamont. "I assume this offends you as much as me." A good shake treats Marmont like a noodle. "This one has lost his privilege to be here."
…..that's not right. The mists of high dudgeon are clearing enough to realize that he's following a power that's not remotely human. He's faced down demonic powers, before…..but armed and langued as they say, with his own powers both mundane and not. "I should say so," he responds, but it's polite, rather than huffy. To the unfortunate Marmont, he notes, leaving martini and paper on the bar counter, "……you wanted me, now you have me. To what end?" Genuinely curious.
It might be a nice idea to let Marmont answer, but the procurer of Lux is having none of that. "Rules are broken," he states. "How and why I care not. As long as they are managed." The slow-motion roll brings him directly along the mezzanine to the stairs, leaving him in full sight of anyone else brought possibly to a halt as he goes. Lamont can decide whether or not to pursue him, but the window of opportunity is narrowing considerably.
"Ahhms shee 'ssthh chrue," comes pitifully from the gentleman who bats weakly and hasn't any luck. "Haaalp."
Of course Lamont follows. The fact that he's….not wearing as much as he might be doesn't seem to discommode him. Righteous anger will have to stand in for both dignity and armor. "Why should I help you?" he asks, disgusted.
Right out up the stairs to the door they go, around the building, and facing the service alley. Once fully out there, Lucian hurls the unwelcome visitor fairly far, though nothing incredibly unnatural. Just enough to make the effort clear and his mood apparent, blazing with contempt and the unspoken demand don't come back.
Marmont apparently wanted some kind of rescue. What sort, he doesn't know. Nor does he know upon landing in a pile of boxes.
Well, he's off Lucian's hands, so to speak. Lamont's going to have a little fun. The one badge of his calling that nearly never leaves his hand is there - the opal ring. It's almost gentle, the way he glides towards Marmont, lifting the hand bearing to catch the light, just so. It glows like a little ember, seductive, distracting. "Now, we'll have a little talk," Lamont says, a thread of silk in his voice.
Lucifer's business is done. He says very little as he withdraws to the place of his home and business once more. The clipped steps will lead to the creaking door, and deafening silence in its wake.
This leaves Marmont disoriented and bloody, nose broken, and head in flames with pain and unease. He most certainly knows himself to be in trouble, and his only thought focuses on getting the crap out of Dodge back to his crummy, empty apartment with a view over the Financial District. "No," he spits out a wad of phlegm and blood. "Sgood. Akshident. Yeah?"
"You summoned the Shadow. You got what you wanted," Lamont's voice is soft, almost comforting…..but mentally, his will's working on this fool's, gripping like a band of iron cooling. "I can't have anyone doing that to me again. You have a choice. I can kill you and dump your body in the river…..or you can be mine. My agent. You'll work for me….and I can teach you what's real, what's not, and what's not to be touched." He takes a handkerchief from his pocket, and dabs almost solicitously at one of the wounds. Not meant to staunch them, but to gather blood, for he tucks it away again immediately. "Because now that you've touched me, I'll always be able to find you."
|ROLL| Lucian +rolls 1d20 for: 10
Yeah, two choices not exactly on the height of his list there. Work. Work means escape. Escape means not dead. Dead is hardly sporting for someone who made a mistake, right? Marmont has some sense of blood and reality crackling through him. "But…?" The question trails off with the application of a handkerchief. How helpful and how utterly tawdry in a way. This brings out a weak groan.
"No buts," Lamont replies, tone almost scolding. Then he's laying a palm on Marmont's forehead, like a mother testing for fever. What it actually serves to do is make the imposition of his will just that much easier - trying to roll this poor fool into acquiescence. Willing helpers are better than corpses. "Go home. I'll find you when I need you," he says, simply