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He only sleeps in his European style house now and again. The Russian staff there know of his den in the alleys, they can reach him there at need. But that's his refuge, away from his fellow foreigners, save for those who come looking for female company. And it's there he's headed now, in hat and overcoat, mist beading into little pearls on the wool. Leaving the bright, neon-lit districts that cater to foreigners, gambling and dancing and tourist entertainments, and returning to the relative quiet of the red-light alley with the anticipation of any working man heading home for the night. The sound of his steps is muffled by the mist.
*
Not many other people on the streets tonight. Anyone else walking by ether avoids eye contact with him entirely or dares a small nod, all wrapped up tightly against the chill. It has yet to snow, but the threat is there with a few more degrees dropped and some precipitation. Ambrose is probably out running the rooftops like the general lunatic he is, daring and risking his life left and right with those boots he swears by — no mental ping from him, so he's either in deep concentration or busy at something.
In a nearby alley, a stray cat shoots out from beneath a lifted porch and darts right across the path before Kent, close enough to be at risk of a trip. The broad stripe of nearby street-light shines upon him and the cat leaves a lengthy shadow as it continues its rolling run away up the road. What could have startled it? Stray dogs are likely, but no sounds of snuffling.
*
It's enough to have him looking around, as if in search of rats. Could be. But he only pauses a beat or two, before he's hurrying on to the great stone arch that leads to the Alley. A whole row of houses devoted to pleasure, what more can one ask for? And his, almost at the end.
*
On the gentleman's pause, a sharp whift of air past his ear, as if a pebble were thrown. No faint clatter of landing, however, reflected on the pavement around him. The sense of attention centering on him, right between his shoulder-blades as he moves to walk on, and then — on the length of a stride, when his inner thigh is exposed to the right-hand side of the alley?
A faint puft and then a bright sting through the fabric of pants, like a sudden wasp-bite! It's but a small nodule, clay, the size of a pill, but attached to it? A needle. A blow-dart! Far too late to stop whatever was contained within the dart from entering the femoral artery, however. But a handful of beats of the heart and oh dear…how tipsy is the world…like a watercolor left in the rain.
*
It's starting to work even as he's realizing what it is. He starts to run - the rosy glow of the street of red lanterns is visible in the distance. As if he could outrun the drug stealing its way along his veins already. AMBROSE It's a shout. HELP. I've been drugged! I'm near the alley… Things are blurring, even as his pace turns to a drunken reel.
*
If only the panic and the upkick in heart-rate didn't further the drug's effects. It swims into his brain and begins to rapidly leaden limbs. Thank goodness two kind Samaritans are there to catch under his arms.
"Easy now, man, you look as if you've had one too many drinks. Let us help you," he says loudly, to the benefit of anyone else watching Kent stagger. Strong, both sides, built to lift him with relative ease should his knees continue to melt to jelly.
"Excellent guesstimate on the dosage," comments the other man even as they begin to escort him down a side-alley rather than allow him to continue towards the ruddy glow of safety. "Within a stone, I would think." Refined, this second voice, nasal and of a hard accent to pin down. Both happen to be wearing hats as well, with brims to heavily shade the face. The first man chimes in again.
"The doctor will be pleased," comes the agreement; this accent is possibly Italiante? God only knows with how the inner ear is all havoc.
From what appears to be an extreme distance, a faint reply to Kent's ears alone, along the kything: I'M COMING, KENT, FIGHT THEM! Searing panic from Ambrose's half, along with the woeful projection of distance — god, no, he's halfway across the city despite his blistering attempt to get there. FIGHT LIKE A FUCKING WILDCAT, I'M COMING!
*
He is trying to fight - dragging his heels, resist their attempts to carry him off - trying to yell, call for attention. Though it's coming out as drunken slurs, which only serves to heighten the impression they want given out. Two of them, he says, blearily. God, he's so very tiiiired.
*
"Come along, man, don't be difficult," chides the first, holding Kent upright almost to his toes on one side. The second man grunts and lifts him up as well, and now it's a bizarre tippy-prance available to him in lieu of walking. "To the mariah, and then you can rest." The glee is a terribly dark thing in the Italianate's voice. Around the corner of the alley awaits the fabled mariah, something smaller than what Li's men tossed him into those months back. There's even a gurney inside and with some cajoling, the very-tired crime-lord is offered a place to lie down. It's padded, delightful to sink down upon if one's exhausted.
Keep FIGHTING, Kent! NO!!! Ambrose's voice is more distorted yet now, a warble barely intelligible as words.
*
He can't muster a lot of muscular strength. Not with this stuff coursing through him. But Kent tries to fling himself down on the ground, as if sheer gravity could stick him to it. Only then, belatedly, does it come to him to try and use his power - groping for the exertion of will that will frighten at least one of them enough to let go.
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 14
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 11
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 7
*
As they enter the gurney proper, the more refined of the two men lets out a sharp cry and lets go of Kent's right arm to stumble against the mariah's wall. A hollow thud of impact and Kent's left to slump on that side. The first gentleman lets out a sharp curse and briefly releases his hold on his captive, only to try and scrabble up a handful of the woolen coat shortly afterwards.
"Enough of that shit," he hisses before grabbing for something off to one side.
"Estevan, be cautious!" The man still leaning against the wall, panting madly, is speaking at least one register higher than before, clutching at his chest. "The dosage!"
Estevan growls, "He'll live." And then another prickle at Kent's arm, a small dart lancing through thick wool and shirt-sleeve to deliver a mind-numbing amount. "The doctor will simply have to wait until he's coherent again."
As if speaking through static and water: I'm coming!!! I'm coming for you, Kent, hold on, hold — Too much agent in the bloodstream now, enough to silence even that insistent Jackal attempting to find where his lover's been stashed.
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 11
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 18
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|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 8
*
I'm your nightmare. Let me go. Run from me. A warlock and the son of a dark line, trying to frighten them away. He reaches for Ambrose, but the thoughts won't cohere. They won't come together and make the sense he needs….
*
Estevan lets out a sharp yelp as the illusion solidifies before him of a giant spider, eyes glinting in too many a number, and he drops Kent entirely to stumble backwards. Out of the mariah he goes, down the two steps, and back onto the concrete. A groan as his head bounces off the road itself. Kent's left to his own devices for a handful of seconds as the refined man stares at him. He now has a hand clutched around a crystal hanging from his neck and he's muttering something under his breath — around his person, a shield, majority mental, in case their captive tries something yet again.
*
He has no weaponry. Absurdly, Kent hisses at Estevan like a snake, trying one more time to frighten him away. Even as he does, he's reaching for Ambrose, blind groping, trying to find him.
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 5
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 16
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 10
*
"IDIOT." Now Estevan's just mad on top of being embarrassed and having a headache. He stomps back up into the mariah and begins manhandling Kent up onto the gurney. "Stick your fucking tongue behind your teeth and stop squirming!!!" It's clear he means to strap Kent down with leather buckled lengths, across chest, hips, above the knees, and across the ankles. The refined gentleman is quick to assist, even if it leaves the captive rumpled beneath his thick coat.
A glint of clarity in the kything: an image of the mariah idling on the street, with the street sign and the name of a cafe on the chalkboard sign left outside by a forgetful busser. ?! I KNOW IT! I KNOW IT! MINUTES, GIVE ME TIME! FIGHT! Ambrose's mental voice rings bright into Kent's mind, accompanied by the illusion of churning limbs and air rushing past at a speed unknown to the standard human.
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 9
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|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 16
*
The drugs are too much. Kent's only feeble, the struggles of someone very drunk indeed. "Stop. Who….why are you doing this?" he asks, or tries to. So frustratingly weak. But at least they're trying to take him alive, and not just executing him in the street.
*
"You'll see." The refined man's voice filters through the sounds of grunts from Estevan's side; he's got the waist strap figured out, but damned if Kent's flaily arms are not helping at all. It's like a giant intoxicated toddler. "The sooner you relax, the sooner it is over." A chilling sincerity to his words and even a smoothing of hair back from Kent's face, the palm cool and lightly sweaty from the earlier startling. Who knows where the man's hat went in the scuffle?
"He's a fucking experiment, not a dog, stop petting him," grouses Estevan as he pins down one of Kent's arms. "Help me with this other one!"
Six blocks over. Six blocks and closing rapidly. The drug's swung high in influence, but it filters through: — close, Kent —
*
It's like trying to change an immense and annoyed baby. Even if Kent can only manage whimpers and slurred curses. One last effort, reaching for his will and trying to cow the man petting him into freeing him. "LET ME GO."
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 19
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 13
*
The hand pauses on Kent's head as the refined gentleman stares down at him with wide dark eyes. Whatever weak shield he had about his mind takes a stunning blow, enough to crackle it and let leaks of influence in.
"Really now, Estevan, release the man. Didn't you hear him?" He reaches to pry the end of the leather from the bronze buckle-cinch. Estevan freezes in his own actions and splutters once before suddenly swinging. An open-handed CRACK across the refined man's face and he stumbles again into the interior wall of the mariah, holding at his cheek in shock.
"Go to the cab! Start the vehicle!" Estevan barely avoids shouting even as he yanks Kent's arm underneath the strap and then cinches it down hard. No more flaily torso. Screw the knees and feet, apparently, he's done with the squirmy captive.
Three blocks and closing, with each rapid breath puffing silvery in his wake. Ambrose's pupils reflect all city-light now in red; the hilt of his trench-knife is in his white-knuckled hand. There will be death unless the mariah pulls away soon.
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 13
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 7
*
Yeah. Do that. Start the vehicle. But it's 1923 and a long way from the days of electronic push-button ignition. The poor man with the protective crystal, well….he finds himself fumbling and unable to get the car rolling again. They should've had a getaway driver to keep it running, for it's immobilized for now.
*
Even as Estevan's making certain that the chains keeping the gurney from rolling about inside the mariah are secure, he hears the key in the engine turn — and continue to turn — and continue to turn, even as the gas pedal is pushed down. He pounds on the wall separating himself from the cab of the vehicle and shouts, having totally lost his cool,
"ARE YOU MAD?! Stop, you're going to — " Too late, that's the sound of the engine flooding and beginning to leak and complain. "Fuck me sideways," he spits, kicking at the gurney in anger. Kent's probably violently jostled, but the straps keep him primarily on the bed.
Then comes the sound of rapidly-approaching bootsteps up the cobblestone side-street, at a pace triple a racing heart. No words from Ambrose, not even mentally — just the echo of keen, emotionless, soulless focus upon the man he can see framed by the open back doors. Kent can't miss this, even in his drugged state. The Jackal means vengeance.
Estevan pauses at the entrance to the back of the mariah, momentarily frozen at the sight and silhouetting to block the view outwards. He then makes to draw a gun from his hip!
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d20 for: 4
*
He's reaching out mentally towards Ambrose, trying to warn him about the gun. But mostly, he's focussed on trying to distract Estevan so he doesn't fire. Trying to scream and mostly kind of groaning drunkenly….but he flails out with a foot, at least startling him.
*
|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 11
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|ROLL| Ambrose +rolls 1d20 for: 11
*
Split attention does Estevan no good. The sharp and sudden rattle of chains behind him does make him flinch, but the gun is still pulled from its holster and lifted. CRACK!!! Off it goes and then his exhale on his yelping curse of "FUCKING H — " is entirely lost. Ambrose plows into the man's torso at god only knows how many miles an hour and they're a blur of entangled bodies into the interior of the mariah. A squelchy THUD and a pained outcry suddenly cut short. Like warm soup, something splatters upon Kent's face; a burbling sigh falls to silence and someone gets to their feet. Beneath the nauseating sweet-metal of arterial spray up one wall and the various smells of fear, the shadow leaning in to squint into Kent's eyes interrupts with vetiver, mint, and cardamom.
"Kent!" A soft slap to the face, sure to smear more blood. "Kent, what did they do?!"
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d10 for: 10
*
It is, for a terrifying moment, too weirdly reminiscent of waking up in a German hospital during the war. Kent stares up at Ambrose with too-wide blue eyes, and whimpers in fear. But the moment passes. "Dart," is all he can say about the situation. Another whimper from him, noises he'd scorn from himself if he weren't so far gone in all this. He can only look the plea at Ambrose. Help me.
*
Ambrose straightens sharply and lets out a ferocious-sounding hiss as he hears the driver exit the cab. He then disappears out of the open doors in shocking silence. Outside, "I'm so sorry, Estevan, I thought to — WHA — !" A humongous hollow THUMP of a body against the outside of the vehicle and then stillness.
The Jackal is quick to return after dealing with the driver. Someone will find the body rolled beneath the stalled vehicle in the morning, no doubt. He works at the leather cinches at Kent's chest with panic-stricken fingers before realizing that he's got the knife. Bless the trust between them: the bloodied knife slices through each set of straps as easily as through butter.
"A dart," he repeats, voice rough as he slides the trench blade away again. "A drug, right. What else can you tell me?" He's working Kent's body from the gurney and up into his arms in what could feasibly be an impossible task but for how he's utilizing the Bane. It's as if the curse has vanished from him like water in sunlight; Ambrose is drawing on reserves of life-energy saved up in order to access the physical strength and speed. Estevan was hit with rampaging force similar to that of a bull. "Tell me what you can, we need to get to someplace safe."
*
He makes a little sound in the back of his throat. "Called me 'experiment'," he says, lolling in Ambrose's arms. Quite the reversal of his passionate embrace the other evening. "Call Anton at my house." One of the Russians who works for him, who can presumably be trusted. "Or Meyer."
*
A careful shifting and now Kent can rest his head against the Jackal's chest. The taller man with his wool-coated armful of human leaves the mariah, but not before giving the gurney one final kick; the metal leg dents nearly in half. Fuck you, gurney.
"I have someone closer," he says, breath warm on Kent's face, heedless of the war-paint in crimson still on skin. "Safer yet. Trust me, «azizam»." As smoothly as he can manage, Ambrose slips from a walk into a lope and they both disappear into the shadows of another side-alley. It's a minute or two of travel, the only sounds beyond that of the city being the rhythmic pounding of booted feet and the slight hard huff of each breath. The beat of a working heart can be felt if ear is pressed to chest.
Finally, a turn and then a descent down a set of stairs, wherein the road itself blocks off the darkwood door. Ambrose kicks at it and when the shush of a wooden slide is heard, he mutters something low and irritated in Persian. A reply tersely back and then they're admitted into the abode. It's warm despite the subterranean level, given the roaring fire in a nearby hearth, which sheds almost all of the light in the room. Furniture of Indian ilk and metals are glossed in golds and reds. The person accompanying them over to a backless settee with a low rise on one side speaks rapidly; Ambrose fires back in the same language even as he's kneeling to lie Kent upon it. "Be still. No one here will harm you," he murmurs in English as he makes sure to get all of Kent's limbs upon the piece of furniture. "He's fetching the doctor," the Jackal explains of the other vanished man.
*
|ROLL| Lamont +rolls 1d10 for: 8
*
There are actual tears, but only a few. He doesn't break down entirely, does Kent. But he's reaching up for Ambrose, as if afraid the Jackal might leave him alone here. How that might look to any observers….for once, discretion has vanished. They might as well be by themselves in that cavernous bed.
*
An upwelling of guilt-ridden empathy from Ambrose to flood the kythed link, intermingled with breathless relief. "Shh, «azizam», I am here," he whispers even as he remains kneeling down beside the settee. He unwraps his headscarf now and uses it to wipe at the blood on Kent's face, at the tears he sees. Another hard clench of his heart and bitterness at the near-failure poisons the link briefly. His free hand takes up and interlaces fingers. "They paid dearly." A thick swallow on his part and he glances up as the doctor arrives with the previous man.
"A drug indeed," says the doctor, his accent of Tamil and voice warm and gentle, almost large despite his rail-thin build and silvery hair of age. "Allow me, please, Jackal."
"He is safety, trust me," Ambrose breathes again, daring to wipe at Kent's cheek once more before backing away. He can barely seem to divert his eyes from his lover on the settee even as he begins a low conversation in Persian with the one who admitted them entry.
"Hmm." This from the doctor, a thoughtful sound. He's taken a pen light to Kent's eyes, one at a time, and looked up nose as well as into mouth. He takes Kent's pulse at his wrist and then sighs. "Do you know where he was darted, Jackal?" The doctor glances over his shoulder and Ambrose breaks away from the conversation, much to the annoyance of the door-guard.
"Unfortunately, no, sir, I have not yet learned," he replies quietly, sadly, eyes shifting to Kent again.
*
"Near Alley of Joint Pleasure," Kent explains. Surely the doctor in question will assume that he was there to enjoy the ladies on offer. Let him. He's started to shake, unhappily, though now he lets his hands rest on his belly. No more grabbing for Ambrose. Not after common sense has had time to catch up.
*
The doctor looks back to his patient and gives a knowing sigh and nod. "Ah, yes. I know what they use there. May they prick their own fingers and know of its nightmares."
"What? What was it?" Ambrose asks, stepping over and up beside the settee, his shadow cast long and lean across it by the fireplace behind him.
"Burundanga, of the plant known as 'angel's trumpet'. There is a small group who hunts the unknowing in this city — "
"They are no more." The doctor has no reply to Ambrose's sharp comment. He knows better than to question, given its truth.
"Would that you made certain of it," murmurs the doctor. "He will need time and rest. Fluids. I have no antidote for it, considering he did not ingest it through his mouth. A day a-bed and then we will see what the morning brings. I will brew a tea to help clear his mind and allow him rest." As soon as the doctor's gotten to his feet with the aid of the doorman, Ambrose has taken up his place in a kneel.
"He's shaking," he says in a mild panic even as he looks away from Kent and to the doctor, beginning to go wide-eyed.
"He has been through much. He will be well with time." So gently and firmly does the doctor tell them both this. Ambrose swallows and nods, his eyes downcast before they slide to Kent again. Regardless of the presences in the room, he places a warm hand on the man's shoulder and gives it a squeeze. I trust him. You will be well. I am here.
*
Lamont locks his hand around Ambrose's, that grip as steely as it can be, considering the drug. The link is open, if wavering, and it's all gratitude and pent-up fear and curiosity. Who were they?
*
Almost as if uncertain that the link can be heard, Ambrose waits until the doctor is escorted from the room again. Then, he presses a fast kiss to the knuckles wrapped around his own — ah, the real reason for the wait. He looks between Kent's eyes, his own whorled dark for the relative dimness of the room. I did not look. I… Festering remorse at realizing it. I was so mad. I have no bloody excuse. I don't… He frowns hard and closes his eyes. I don't remember any insignia on their clothing, no patches, no tattoos. They called you an experiment. Another volcanic up-bursting of acidic rage and he sighs hard and shakes his head, as if to dispel the emotions. That speaks to me of being hired. They will pay.
*