The Divine Truth

[Elias Donovan]

Elias stiffened at Connor's sudden movement. The man barked orders and leaped into the ravine separating them from the action. Elias watched, deadpan, while the man foolishly scrambled over the rails. Tehya gasped when he fell, but the suction of air rustling his coat gave Eli more worry than potential electrocution. Strangely, with the rush a shiver tangled cold fingers beneath the sheer cloth of his shirt. His chest pebbled with a chill that would not relent.

Connor made it to the other platform, and Eli released a tightly held breath. His eyes shifted toward Tehya, then. The girl had taken a step as though she meant to follow. Eli stretched out a hand, like he might block her if she tried, and with the gesture came a shake of the head. "It's not worth it,"
he said, but then turned to watch what stage was soon to be revealed.

[Connor Kent]

The train was closing quickly but appeared to be slowing down. Connor threw himself onto the platform, rolling and immediately stood up. He was maybe 10 feet from the man. The man had his arm around the woman's neck and was pointing his gun at Connor. The man was weasily and dressed in ratty clothing. The woman- maybe 25- was petrified, face white with terror.

"You stay back!"
The man said, waving his gun threateningly. He looked around nervously. This was obviously not what he expected. He'd expected an easy time of it. The woman's fear was palpable. She had just been heading home after work, probably tired and ready to spend the rest of her evening with her family. And then this scum comes up to her...Connor noticed the restroom doors next to the stairway leading to the surface and it crystallized in his mind. The man had been going to drag the woman into the bathroom and rape her and maybe kill her afterward.

Rage filled him. Rage at all the injustices of this world. But this time- this time- he could do something about it. His face hardened, he glared at the man and took one step forward. The train had slowed to a stop and the doors hissed open. The man was startled and looked from him to the opening doors and this time his fear was palpable. He pushed the woman forward and then turned and ran. She stumbled but caught herself on the bench.

Connor was not going to let him get away to do it again. Not this time. Not while I'm around, he thought grimly. A lifetime of sports- especially football and soccer- and running 3 miles a day for the last 15 years meant that he reached top speed in 3 steps. Legs and arms pumping, mind focused by righteous fury, he was a 200 pound train of muscle and anger- and he was going to hit this guy hard. He smiled grimly. He was going to enjoy this.

The man briefly looked back and saw him, eyes widening in fear. He desperately turned around and brought up his gun. You better be a good shot with that thing and hit something important because otherwise.... The thought flitted across his mind in an instant. But it was too late. Connor slammed into the guy, hitting him as hard as he could with his shoulder, pushing him with all his strength. The guy flew back the remaining few feet and hit the center handrail running up the staircase with his back. It made a sickening crunch. The man's momentum carried him over the rail and he smacked his head on the corner of a step with a satisfying crack.

Connor stood over him breathing heavily. The man didn't move. Connor went to where the gun lay and kicked it toward the train so that it fell between it and the platform. Connor felt good. Satisfied. He looked to the woman. She was still there, holding herself up against the bench. Surprisingly, there was no one in the cars, so no one had come out. The doors just stood open. Connor went to the woman.

"It's ok miss. He's not going to hurt you."
He touched her shoulder lightly- he wasn't sure if she'd welcome it after the man had accosted her. "It's ok. You're safe now."
She surprised him by burying her face in his chest and crying. She was shaking terribly. He just held her for a moment. "It's ok, It's ok,"
kept saying softly over and over again. The adrenaline was leaving his body and he felt some tiredness wash over him.

The chime of the train startled him. The doors were about to close. The woman pushed away and then darted into the car, just before the door slid shut. She looked at him through the window and mouthed "Thank you."
He smiled at her and watched the train accelerate away.

Then it was just him and the man on the platform. The man still hadn't moved. Connor looked across and saw Tehya and Elias looking at him from the other side of the tracks. He laughed to himself. How he must have looked to them, jumping down, running across the tracks, almost getting hit by a train, almost getting shot. But it had been worth it. That smile had made it worth it. Knowing what he had prevented had been worth it.

Connor pulled his wallet out and was about to call the police to pick the man up when something above caught his attention. It was over the tunnel mouth where he had been looking before. Now that he was closer, he could see more clearly. His mouth fell open. In the darkness, he saw a black mist. His stomach fell and heart started pounding. It was one of those mist things. What had Aria called them? Iji...something? He stood very still, watching the mist. It drifted slowly, deliberately toward the other platform, it's movements reminding him of the way the man had snuck up on the woman. Connor didn't understand. He had been the one moving and running. Why was it moving toward Elias and Tehya?

He had to warn them. Pointing at it, he yelled "Look out!! There's something dangerous up there!!"
For the second time, he jumped down from the platform and started running, again doing his best to avoid any electrified rails. Hopefully this time there would be no train coming.


Edited by Connor Kent, May 5 2014, 09:44 AM.

[Tehya]

Elias raised a hand like he meant to stop her. The words cut. Who was he to dictate worth to her? The callousness undermined every sacrifice she had ever made to protect the lives around her, to keep the line that separated the darkness from reality, when those who walked in the light cast their eyes away from the aberrations in their own society. She glanced at him, his sombre gaze still set across the platform, and the fury burned in her chest. Chinks breached her armour, and light pierced through the frail spots, ready to face whatever the departing train left in its wake. A moment of weakness, but her desire to offer something overwhelmed her caution. She should have known better.

When the train passed and Connor was revealed still standing, a little of her tension drained. Not so the deep glare making an iron mask of her expression. Etched out by her keen senses, she could see the adrenaline rushed jubilance lighting his face, the gratified grin flushed by the strength of his actions. She understood the euphoria, but she didn't forgive the stupidity that had sent him hurtling off the edge of the platform. Hands still buried in her pockets, she stepped back from the edge. She'd wanted to know he was okay, and she could see now that he was. No shots had screamed through the station. There was no blood. The girl had clearly gotten on the train. "Think I might walk." She'd had no destination anyway, was just doing the ordinary rounds in an area well documented for trouble.

She had already begun to turn, content to use the excuse to extricate herself, so she didn't see Connor's expression change. But his words echoed loud. Tehya took it seriously on honed instinct, and sent her dark gaze up to the vaulted ceiling without question. The way her chin jerked, the immediate corded tautness in her stance, spoke of an unusual readiness in reaction to such an obscure warning. It took a second before her eyes focused. Mist leaked out from the darkness -- she had no idea how Connor had even seen it -- and her blood ran cool.

She knew what it was, but she had never seen one. She knew that gods had controlled these creatures once; that the chains had ripped free with the last death of the last god, and that the Ijiraq had faded into the obscurity of myth, even for the Atharim. A thousand year void had passed in which only the rarest journals mentioned them at all, the only reason she could even put a name to it, and that was an awful long time to stimulate evolution free of its one time masters. She did not quite know what she faced, and she did not know quite what it wanted -- or why it was here -- but she knew well what it had been.

She shouldered past Elias, pressed herself in front of him without hesitation or negotiation for her role as protector. Her eyes never took a blink from the descent of the mist, and she had no idea what Connor was doing -- other than to assume something idiotic, like charging back over the tracks. She had a gun at her hip, but it was as useless as a lump of lead in this situation. She had a knife, too, its blade tipped at the centre of the tattoo on her wrist, but neither weapon would do much good while the Ijiraq shifted form.

Tehya flared bright in warning, wondering if it would recognise the power that had once bound it; if that would be enough to ward it off. In the back of her mind flickered the filaments of spirit she had knotted into the rougarou's brain, and she did wonder - of course she wondered. But she would not jeapardise the civilians in her company for an experiment that might cost them all. It alighted some feet away, shimmering the outline of a man, ghosting in and out of vision. It was toying with them.

And then it occurred to her that a creature once enslaved to the power of gods might not simply be afraid of the chains. It might wish vengeance.

[Elias Donovan]

Elias was a gargoyle on the wall, a silent watcher seemingly apathetic to the decay around him. Yet behind the rim of shadowed eyes, he was curious of Connor's fate. It wasn't a merciless countenance that cooled his heart of all care, but men who flung themselves on train tracks were not long for this world.

The train departed, and he remained where he was though Tehya discarded his outreached hand. For a moment, his brow creased with worry she might think to duplicate Connor's foolishness. If she did, she would wrench a moment of mourning from the statue abandoned to solitary on the platform, but a moment would be the extent of his grief. Neither men nor women who flung themselves on train tracks were long for this world.

She didn't. Connor was in tact. The woman saved, although the sudden ferocity with which the gentile American tackled the criminal was quite the shock. Eli had to consider Connor with fresher light. He looked like the kind of man to wear plaid shirts and dad-jeans, but appearances were misleading, apparently.

The wanton excitement flustered Tehya from the scene and she declared her intent to walk the distance to her destination. Eli shrugged, yet from the corner of his eye he watched where her shape retreated.

The echoing warning pumped fresh blood in his ears. Eli snapped his gaze around as Connor gestured overhead. At first he thought it was smoke, though there were no fire to account for it. It disobeyed the laws of circulation and coalesced into some sort of grey density that called to Eli as though he could hear it speak in his mind.

He reached out to touch it, to swipe a hand through its shape. It beckoned and for a chilling moment, Eli thought he saw a smile in the haze. 'Seize it,' were the words of its song, and Eli knew exactly what was implied. The Light pulsed in the microcosm all the brighter as shadow and shade crept ever closer.

If it were not for Tehya planting herself in front of him, he would have answered the call. He gripped her shoulders not so much lower than his own, and squeezed them beneath the slender crook of his fingers. The widening of his eyes flared them all the whiter, but they burned with every blinkless second that passed. He bent ever so slightly and spoke in her ear. "It speaks to us,"
he whispered.

"Fascinating."
The word dripped from the corners of his smile, and bred deep in the crevices of desire, he intended to do as he wished.

Quick movements rendered Tehya free of his path, and he strode forward in the absence of blockade. The air rendering the shadow in swirls and form billowed his coat from his ankles and swept his hair from his face. Yet onward Elias walked, smiling with the seeming insanity of taunting sheer death.

He thrust out his hand where the mist took form and within the cage of its center, he found solid hold. His senses said a heart of smoke pounded in his palm, yet his eyes could barely discern air from opacity of the creature. It shrieked as though clutched by the seat of its being. Eli grit his teeth, and a burn crept up his arm, leeching the veins black, wrinkling them to the surface of suddenly fragile skin. Black bored up his throat along the channels of blood. It circled his face with the grim halo of death. The heart lurched but he could withstand no longer. He released the connection.

He stumbled back, and already his coloring was returning, but the need to wretch was strong, a seasickness afflicted by something far more fearsome than the vastness of the sea. He looked upon the hand that was moments from sure power, but rather than mastery, his fingers were curled inward, the knuckles flared and red, the nails skeletal and bony. He held it to his chest protectively, and spun about to unleash hell upon the creature, but it had moved on.
Edited by Elias Donovan, May 6 2014, 03:24 PM.

[Connor Kent]

Connor quickly made his way across both sets of tracks, this time avoiding anything that could snag his boots. Thankfully, no trains lighted up any tunnels. When he got to the platform, he again threw himself onto it and rolled to a standing position.

The scene that greeted him was as bad as he feared. Tehya was standing in front of Elias facing the mist-creature as if her presence meant something to it, as if she were protecting Elias. What does she think she is doing? It made no sense. And Elias just standing behind her, staring at the mist? What is wrong with that guy? First the woman who was about to be raped and now Tehya? Does he not care about anyone? he thought disgustedly. As if hearing his thoughts, Elias put his hand on Tehya's shoulder, quickly said something to her, and pushed his way forward into the mist. Connor felt some relief that the young man had finally stepped up, however foolishly.

But it was such a strange site that Connor stopped. The mist surrounded Elias, enveloping him, swirling, the bottom of his coat drifting with the currents. Elias stood entranced in the midst of it and then reached out into the mist. The creature convulsed and pulsated, mist billowing and roiling. At first Connor had some hope that somehow the man was doing something. But whatever it was, it looked painful though. After holding on- to what he didn't know- for a few moments, Elias stumbled back, wavering and turning around, looking at his hand and cradling it to his chest protectively.

That was enough for Connor. All of them were going to die and there weren't any magic-users here to stop it, nor Atharim with swords hanging from their hip. Just a man and a woman and him- and all he had was his hunting knife in his pocket. Connor ground his teeth determinedly. But just because he didn't have magic, didn't mean that he couldn't beat this thing somehow. He just needed to think.

He looked around the platform for something-anything- to trigger an idea. Barren. Just the benches and the walls. Doors to the rest rooms and probably maintenance closets. There were cleaning fluids in there- but no. If a blade did nothing to it while it was mist, he doubted liquid would. The problem was mist.

And then he saw it on the wall behind the glass and smiled. That's it! he thought. That might work. He rushed to the wall, looking back as he ran to see if Elias and Tehya were alright.


Edited by Connor Kent, May 6 2014, 02:43 PM.

[Tehya]

Elias's hands landed on her shoulders, the narrow press of his fingers squeezing tight. At first she presumed fear, but his breath only curled secrets in her ear, the length of his raven hair brushing her neck as he leaned in. And then the force of her protection was swept carelessly aside. It speaks to us. His words pressed a shiver through her, suppressed by the grim line of her mouth. Her concentration rocked.

He went to it, purposeful. And thrust a hand into its centre.

Tehya was powerless to stop any of it.

The Ijiraq keened a shrill cry. Elias's veins blackened like spilled ink rippling out over his pale skin, so fragile as to look almost translucent. A grimace burned pain into his expression, but his grip did not relent, and the connection pulsed. She had no proof, but suspicion began to darken a conclusion she dare not allow herself to complete. Though it offered a solution. Fiery strands hovered ready, glinting like blood in her peripheral. Ready to char both monsters.

She knew she should. The snake might as well have writhed on her wrist.

But she didn't.

When he let go the Ijiraq recoiled, dispersing loose in all directions that led away from its tormentor, its howl echoing distantly. Tehya drew the Flame, released it. Droplets steamed as they caught in the net. A few sparked then died singular deaths. Nothing ignited, and the Ijiraq continued to drift. Pinpricks of rain kissed her skin, burying like blades as it passed through her body. The cold fisted her heart, crushed it as though determined to squeeze out its last beat, then passed like ice-melt, rippling shivers in its wake.

The mist coalesced behind her; its presence felt like she leaned back on solid ice, pinioned by the dreadful cold. Strands of hair, caught in the creature's aura, tickled her cheeks; the Ijiraq mimicked the placement of Elias's hands, like it planned to use her as a shield. Hell sparked fury in Elias's eyes, and she was no longer certain what he was truly capable of, but her dark gaze held no plea. She was built for this. If he would not end it, she would.

Though if she burned it now, she would burn with it.

Ropes of power spiralled and tightened, but in the moment she released them to blaze, they frayed. It took a moment to realise the spirits were lulled by the creature at her shoulder, that as her carefully aligned weaves dissolved to nothing the Ijiraq had begun to inhale the very essence of light from her. It burned bittersweet, soothed her to quiet surrender. The first inkling of fear sparked in her gaze, surprised at first, then desperate. It grew a heavy burden. Heavy like sleep.

Then it withdrew without warning, wrenching the light and spirits from her grasp. Nothing remained of its presence.

Darkness rushed in the empty space, leaving her dizzy, lacing every limb with weakness. Through the black spots floating across her vision she saw Connor, and a few hazy connections put together that he had scared the Ijiraq off. She had no idea how he knew what he was doing, or if it was perhaps a fluke. Something to think on later, not now. Right now it was better to concentrate on keeping her feet, and regaining her composure. She was determined not to fall in front of these strangers, nor to invite their concern.

A rumble from the tunnel finally announced their train.

[Connor Kent]

What Connor saw as he looked back chilled him to the bone. Tehya stood there and fire seemed to roll from her toward the creature. Are you kidding me? Another one? But he had no time to question the coincidence further. The mist moved quickly, as if drawn by a magnet to Tehya. The fire didn't seem to have any effect he could see, but now it was behind her, looming over her in a perverse lover's pose, Tehya seemingly frozen in thral to the creature. Her head lolled back as if resting on a lover's chest.

Connor reached the wall and broke the glass to the fire extinguisher with his elbow. It was the only thing he could think of. All fire suppression systems worked by removing one or more elements from the fire triangle- oxygen, fuel and heat. The CCD was a technologically advanced country so they should have the same modern models as those back home, which drew out the heat very rapidly, freezing whatever it was sprayed at almost instantly.

That last time Giovanni had frozen the creature and Aria had cut off its head. There was a lot of blood. Connor hoped that between the freezing and his hunting knife, he'd be able to stop the thing before it hurt any of them.

Connor grabbed the extinguisher, popped the safety tab with his thumb and ran to the creature while his right hand pulled out his knife and flipped it open.

The spray of the extinguisher caused the mist to billow and it roiled. A high keening painfully cut through his ears and into his brain, like bone in a grinder. The mist began to coalesce quickly, and he could begin to make out a head thrown back in agony. But before it solidified into something he could kill, it turned that head and the black sockets that were its eyes flared wide as it saw him. It struck him in the chest, knocking him back onto the ground.

Connor held onto the extinguisher even as he flew back the few feet. He struck the ground and his head hit hard. Bright lights burst in his eyes, but he shook his head to clear them. Have to get up, he thought. Have to stop it. But when his sight had cleared, the creature was gone.

Tehya, though, was still standing there, face no longer in ecstasy but rather tired concentration, as if gathering herself. Or rather, to keep from falling. He didn't know what the thing had been doing to her, but from his experience with Jensen, he knew that she was very weak, whatever brave face she was showing him. Connor's head ached and his chest felt bruised, but he forced himself up and walked slowly to her.

"Are you alight?"
he said with concern. She looked at him and her dark eyes looked drained. He offered her his hand. "You need to sit down. You're going to need rest to recover from this."


And then Connor heard the train coming. Finally


Edited by Connor Kent, May 7 2014, 09:54 AM.

[Elias Donovan]

When Eli turned, he found the density of black had moved on. Its target became Tehya, and to her credit, the Native American held her ground. Eli had no need of his powers to enhance the reality of his sights.

Whether the particulates of black swarmed around Tehya's body or passed directly through her form, Eli was equally fascinated. He held his hand close to his chest. Cacti-sharp prickles needled through the skin as though returning to life after falling numb.

The specter took on the shape of face, one that hovered above Tehya's shoulders, and replicated Elias' posture moments before. Would the thing toss the girl aside as he had? Was it going to come for him? He did not think so, as while it seemed on the verge of hurting her, it behaved as though it cared more about him. Why? He could not guess.

Tehya blanched with fear, but Elias had neither an idea for how to startle it away nor the deep desire to do so. Connor's victim moaning across the platform was more dangerous than this phantom, perhaps even Connor himself, and Tehya's fear was a rational response. Eli only watched it. His arm felt normal again, and he lowered it to his side. This thing was familiar to him, but perhaps he sat too often around back-yard campfires. Black smoke would always billow acquaintanceship on the edges of his senses.

Connor burst by, and Eli gasped at the intrusion to his senses. He wielded the cylindrical tube of a fire extinguisher like a weapon; in his other hand a knife, a weapon for flesh and blood not of smoke. The man must be mad! The specter was neither a fire to drench nor a victim to stab.

A cloud of white sprayed like the foam of a wave crashing on their heads. The metallic screech that followed wrinkled Eli's expression with annoyance, one that was slightly abated by the specter's resultant retaliation.

Connor landed on his back. If unconscious, Eli could not say. Tehya seemed stunned, and Eli's scrutiny for the ill-planned assault faded. He was intent to understand this strange predator, and before it fled, it whispered one more thing in his mind, one that shuddered cold within the core of his being. "I'll return for you." Shapes filled Eli's mind, scribbles he did not understand, and with them, the accompanying sensation of spitting upon an honored title. Then, both vanished, and he was left with his own bewilderment.

Connor climbed to his feet, meanwhile, as Eli was left to decipher the cryptic parting-words. He went to Tehya, unconcerned about Eli of course. The extent of his distress for her well-being flattened Eli's expression. He shook out his hand and joined them, but it was not Tehya that Eli pampered.

It was to Connor his scrutiny turned. His position took one one beside Tehya. As though it was two against one. "She's fine. Who are you? First the woman. Now this."
The dark sleeve of his coat followed the point where his gaze darted across the tracks. Both returned to the weapons Connor wielded in his ill-devised attack. "Find yourself some sort of hero, or something?"
The coal of his eyes were accusatory. Of the three strangers, only one behaved suspiciously.

Train brakes screeched in the tunnel, but Eli did not abandon his investigation to seek the escape.

[Connor Kent]

Before Tehya coiuld respond to Connor's query- she really did seem to be making sure that she didn't collapse, as Jensen had collapsed- Elias came and stood beside her, eyes accusatory, hand no longer cradled in pain.

"She's fine. Who are you? First the woman,"
- his hand pointed to the scene of the attempted rape- "Now this,"
nodding to the knife and fire extinguisher. "Find yourself some sort of hero, or something?"


Connor looked at the man for a moment, filled with contempt for this punk kid. His face grew hard, eyes glaring. "Let me tell you something. When a woman is about to be raped, you don't just stand around and let it happen. It's not called being a hero. It's called being a man."


The train was coming now, slowing down, warm wind stirring the air. This time he could see a couple faces in the windows, ready to disembark.

Connor went on. "And in case you didn't notice, I drove that creature off. It would have killed all of us. It's called an...."
- he fumbled to remember the full name- "Ijiq or something like that. I've seen them before. They suck the life out of you. And freezing it and cutting its head off is the only way I know to stop it."
He stepped forward. "So maybe you just back off before we have a problem."


The train came to a stop and the doors whooshed open, spilling out a handful of passengers.


Edited by Connor Kent, May 9 2014, 09:12 AM.

[Elias Donovan]

The brakes screeched. The air it stirred ruffled his coat and fluttered his hair. The gentle, polite man that presented himself to him and Tehya before the would-be rapist made himself known was replaced by a boil under the surface ready to blow. Eli could practically sense the foreshocks to the earthquake Connor likely wished he could unleash upon what he viewed as another punk kid. He might as well have been an Elder shaking his finger and outlining the dark future of his soul for all the room to witness. As though rebukes of such a nature would do anything to Eli except make him pierce another body part.

Eli did not back down. Nor did he take his eyes from Connor's. The man's threat slid over him like oil on water. There was not a thing in the world that could make Elias care about this man's opinion of him. Concerning the nurse, Eli made his choice, and Connor assumed it was to let her be victimized in front of them. Perhaps he would and perhaps he would not, but Connor had made up his mind, and Eli didn't care at all to correct him.

The doors parted, and like good citizens of the world, the three of them waited for others to disembark before boarding. In the meantime, if Connor thought Eli was a brat, he should not underestimate a brat's insight into events. Only one of the trio was behaving suspiciously, and now, Connor openly admitted to knowing what was likely extremely rare information.

"You're the one with the problem. Anger management issues? As a psychologist might say."
Elias shook his head dismissively. "You spend a lot of time cutting the heads off things? Connor?"
But Eli's mounting suspicion was giving Connor a lot of credit. He was another idiot in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Eli had the exactly zero interest in proving himself to him or any of the others that preached to him about being a 'real man'. He knew, and was comfortable, with exactly what he was.

He was going to stay with Tehya though and make sure she boarded the train.