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Midnight dwells, sometimes, in perpetuity. Beyond the labyrinth of skyscrapers, certain corners of New York never know the sun. High walls smeared in years of decay and once paved ground papered in refuse speak to how forgettable this dark corner is.
It's not a place anyone meaningfully seeks. You come with business or not at all. Scattered boxes fallen to worn, spongy boards further impede easy traffic.
As if anyone would wander here by mistake. It takes concerted effort crossing a rooftop and looking along a blind wall to find the place, but it's easy for a woman who can teleport or a man who can skim across air nearly.
"There," says Wanda, gesturing at a roost so piss poor a pigeon wouldn't go near it. Her boots grip the uneven, flypapered rooftop of a building abandoned on the exterior, anyways, since the war. "I see the aura."
Pietro might not see much. He might not hear it. But the chicken scratches deliberately placed here and there reflect the same cant used in Istanbul, southern Spain, and the stews of Delhi. They're unique entirely to a sect of German cultists serving none other than their maker. Although this kind has a particularly nasty interest in summoning, more than anything else, using tainted vessels - gays, Romani, the usual assortment - as their 'offerings.'
Pietro Maximoff thought about wearing his costume but, to be honest, they were getting up to more covert actions today. So he's wearing a leather jacket and dark trousers, his treaded boots sure to wear quickly, as they always do.
He leans in closely to peer at the runic markings, such as they are, pushing a lock of white hair back as its spilled across his forehead.
"What sort of forces are these fools toying with? Bad enough a sect born of Hitler's own, as if they ever needed any occult help inflicting evil on the world," he mutters. Seeing some of the victims of this particular group, left behind and hollowed out by the darkness for which they've been used, reminds him a little too much of the camps and laboratories of their wretched childhood.
Her costume never really changes: claret coat, the colour of a fine wine, and black for the rest. The corset sometimes matches and sometimes it doesn't, but she's turned over to preferring the dark leather rather than the bloody one. For this, Wanda would be considered a nihilist, years ahead of punk or Goth movements. In Berlin, she fits in just fine. Here? The story is a little different.
Her fingers curl into fists, fingerless gloves revealing no rings or any other indicators of status. Nothing but the golden skin, not desirable in any Aryan canon. Unlike Pietro, whom she watches impassively. Better than showing emotion. This is hunting, old as time.
"A boy went missing in Little Odessa." She speaks Transian; it's safest. English is the least of her multiple languages. "They were sloppy. I smelled…" A shudder runs through her. The noxious scents bubbling in the light of foul magic, borne of blood and pain, are never going to be pleasant. "Maybe they follow old books, not actual people. It is not like in Buenos Aires. There…" She shakes her head. "There we would need more care. But these people are not showing the care they should." Erik would be appalled.
Pietro Maximoff looks sharply at his sister, "I suspect caring, whether with heart or mind, isn't particularly in their repertoire," he says. Others often think of Pietro as uncaring, seeing his sharp edges as evidence of a callous heart. In truth, he feels quite strongly - it is the indifference of others which has made his rage so very cold. That and everyone being so damned bloody slow all the time.
"Buenos Aires wasn't your fault, as I have reminded you on numerous occasions. No one could have saved that girl. There is no one faster than me and no one more skilled at magic than you," he says. "And don't claim your bloody boyfriend counts, I have no time for false piety," he says.
"Now, you've found the aura - but does it have a trail?"
"They have to care. They cannot harness any of those rites without emotion. You cannot be callous and calculating in a blood sacrifice," hisses the witch, her words an Arctic chill behind the vicious precision of a staggered range of sharp syllables. "They have to be fed on hate or resentment. Someone fans those flames."
The locale changes, but the song never does. Her hand yearns to rub the tension out of Pietro's back, smooth out the care from his brow. That is her role, the compassionate one to balance his emotions. They don't have the luxury this close.
Her eyebrows are still furrowed, attempts to peer beyond the wall a failure. "It goes through. How are they going through? It is a solid barrier." Her fingers dance along the fringes of her belt. "Not around. They went through."
Pietro Maximoff frowns, "In my measure, hate and resentment don't count as caring - they are, in fact, its opposites," he says. "The acid that runs in their veins may burn and may serve as fuel for their hellish pursuits, but, in the end, they have no hearts and what little soul they have is naught but ash and embers," he says.
While she may not comfort him, he can feel her urge to do so and that, for now, is enough. "Through? Most likely a secret switch or trigger then. Let me look," he says. And then he becomes a blur, fingers dancing over the surface of the wall, inspecting every niche, every cranny, every crack or inconsistency, seeking out any button or hook that might activate a hidden lever and swing the wall open to their purposes.
They could argue philosophy. She inclines her head to concede the difference opinion, but her burning amber eyes share none of the warmth their sunlit counterparts in the heavens do. "The light of reason may redeem them, or it may not. At the very least, we owe it to remove the source of their power, wicked as it is. They know nothing of its corruption or they don't countenance the cost."
Maybe that is the worst part of all.
Pietro's efforts are timely enough. The wall is solid and the bricks disgusting. There's so much filth on the ground that his skin will blacken with it, his boots smeared, his bearing to stink. There's no lever per se; the trick is a block of cement under the detritus that needs to be lifted, a metal head covering an old-style crank of sorts.
At normal speeds, it might have taken hours to uncover it. As it is, it takes Pietro less than a minute, his body a blur as he goes from spot to spot, finally clearing away enough to find the lever.
"A moment," he says and he steps aside and shakes himself clean, vibrating his body with vigorous rapidity and sending splatters of filth in all directions until he can finally shake himself clean. It's not a perfect job but it at least get sthe worst of it out.
"Disgusting. I intended to spend an hour in the bath after this task as it was. Now I suppose I'll have to double it," he mutters. "You may reason with them if you like, sister. I intend to persuade them with my fists."
Never underestimate the power of a sister with a dislike of filth when filth isn't called for. Among the simplest spells in any sorceress' canon are those to wash away dirt and grime, a few incantations' worth of greeting and encouragement enough to repel the dirt from Pietro. She can't guarantee the stench will fade, but it has to help. A flick of her wrist assures that vibrational force is followed up by the faintest smoothing and buffing. Might as well look pristine entering into a den of sin and squalor.
"Bleach is better." Her nose wrinkles. It isn't a smell she likes, but so be it. She descends through the garbage, jumping down off the ledge and landing in a crouch. The expression she wears doing so is like a cat who fell into a vat of unmentionable liquid.
Pietro Maximoff sighs and follows, moving at least a bit ahead of her, "I'll take the point," he says, in a bit of a sharp tone. Yes, he's protective, but it's also logical. He, after all, can react more quickly than her and get them out of there if things get out of hand.
"I suspect we won't have far to go," he says. "Even such as they won't be able to endure this stench for long."
Twisting the handle will crank the door open. Recent oiling at least attests to no desire for a squeak. Whoever these cultists are, they must be quite thin because the space doesn't get so much larger than a coffin or a closet. It's a tight fit even for three people. No light reveals itself, only a wooden set of walls scarred and scuffed in time. The linoleum floor isn't much better. Two handles are on either side, allowing access out into a different corridor. Right goes one way, left another.
Wanda is no fan of confined spaces, but she can function, stepping within. Circumstance presses her hard up against Pietro's back, and the minor adjustment attests to drawing a knife. Not useful for most people, but most people don't know spell-charmed silver tempered in the fourth dimension from a hole in the wall.
Pietro Maximoff doesn't mind having his sister close at hand - they've shared a womb, a little bit of confining space isn't likely to be an issue.
He keeps his hands ahead, carefully feeling his way along the narrow passageway, "I feel as if we should have to drink some potion or eat a bit of cake to get through things. If smiling cats or mad hatters start to appear, I'll grow concerned," he mutters.
It's the thought that counts. Being the human shield to the very vulnerable, very mortal sorcerer — or speedster — is not the most comforting of roles, even if Wanda can and will stare down Death if it comes to it. Empty eye sockets don't frighten her so much as loss.
The hallway takes a sharp jaunt after a few feet, and swings on a jagged route designed by a toddler with a hate for anything linear. Odd edges and plywood corners exist where they shouldn't be, nudging clothes, scratching cloth. A bumped toe is almost certain. Beams drag too low through that bare expanse, though now and then a bare cinder block with corroded wires pokes out. They're descending, though slow, and they might be halfway to Harlem at this rate.
Now and then patches of light peek through the boards. Nothing much to speak of as a source. Wanda feels more than sees, without cheating, the Sight drowning her otherwise. "Do you need a snack?" Old habit. They both burn too hot to be safe. "I feel like this is a run for little rats. They will shock us at the end."
Walk light, Pietro. A board gives, and it's down, down, down if he doesn't catch himself.
Pietro Maximoff keeps low, although remaining highly aware at a slow speed is certainly trying for the young mutant. Her words draw a low laugh from him, though, and he shakes his head, "I'll make do," he says. "It reminds me a bit of Warsaw. The tunnels under the city, where they hid from the bombings, half collapsed after the war, The tunnel rats were good to us, even if their soup tasted like shoes. I think, perhaps, it might have -been- shoes."
And then he's plunging, breaking through the ground and tumbling downwards, flipping over to land likely on his back, hopefully without snapping his spine.
Slow for Pietro, fast for everyone else. Wanda tends to move too quick when she is with him, curbing little of his saturated rush through life. He's Quicksilver; she holds intuitive faith in his abilities, and that they will not end up with snapped necks in a dingy basement of horrors. About right.
"Worse than Warsaw. It was a communal space there. This… this breathes with hate and contempt. They leave things here to be forgotten." Her light steps are almost muffled, rolling forward, possibly cushioned on a telekinetic web. She has no love of walking, as the mercurial brother with his floating bangs evaporates. He drops, and she plunges headlong after, not quite crashing into him but bouncing off. Catlike reflexes mean feet down, at least.
And in a pseudo arena smeared by German symbols, jagged circles of lightning bolts and a string of hideous, ugly sentiments in ink. Much of it is rusty and the drain in the floor is filthy to boot, a grated thing clotted by hardened sand like used kitty litter. Among the finer points, a series of hardened cages with mesh, most unoccupied at a dim glance, off around the sides. The sloping ground is uneven, probably tiled and laid with dirt. A dangling apparatus of some kind hangs from the far end of the oval. It's not huge, but respectable. The sort of place for cock fights in earlier times.