What happened

This is when vampires rub the sleep out of their eyes; the laborer sits with a wife whining into his ear as he escapes into beer; the whore, affronted by mirrors, applies pomegranate-lipstick: with heavy eyelids, the sun slips away. Leaving the air in its industrial wake, the smell of oil, cars, and greed poignant.

He passed a sign stating The City Police Department. Interest was small, thin. The place did not look familiar. It reminded him of Palasch, somewhat. Though, there were no familiar scents or faces. There was, in reality, nobody around. Was he shaking? Of course not.

'Well, Jace. It's been nice.' Lusiphur had that same look when he had considered retiring. I couldn't help but smile, even though I felt somewhat nervous. 'Are you sure? I mean... There's so much more we could do.' Lusiphur had grinned at that, which was disturbing. I frowned, 'Not like I need you or anything, I just...' Luse held up a gloved hand, shaking his head slightly. 'Jace, I think I need some time alone.' 'Or to find a good lay,' I snickered. There was a moment of silence. He looked towards a place with buildings and promise; I looked at the desert, thinking of The Steps; Jola.

And now, Jace found himself in this predicament. Even though he was still the same tall blonde elf that ran from Widowmaker and dealt with Vido's scarred smile (as well as habits), Jace was strangely quiet. He found himself thinking of Lusiphur, again. That day. Jace snorted, stalking towards the area by the water: The Docks.

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Lusiphur was not happy. Apparently even sawing off the blonde girl's head with a hook knife was not enough to kill her. It kept trying to reattach itself, but at least by then she was no longer capable of screaming. He picked up the reaper's head to keep it separate and searched about the kitchen for some way to transport pieces of whoever this bitch was to his boss.

Eventually he found two garbage bags. He chose two because if he'd put all the parts into one they might have healed and reformed before he was able to get the girl to the mayor. So the head was tossed into one bag, the torso into another. An arm here, an arm there, part of a leg in that bag with the other half in this one.

Luse finally barged into the mayor's office about an hour after the hit should have ended, setting one bloody post-it note on the mayor's desk and two squirming garbage bags. He was glaring at the aged human. Our elf was not pleased.

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Perhaps if George had been expecting company she might have cleaned up the apartment she was illegally staying at a little bit more. Chances were, she would have gotten distracted with whatever was on public television and left things the way that they were.

It was a studio apartment, with a bed that folded down from the wall, a dresser and a couch somehow crammed into the tiny space. There was a vague kitchen area and a small closet with made up the bathroom. Roland, and George being the late daughter of an English professor quickly thought of Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", seemed interested with all the mundane quirks of modern living.

George introduced Roland to ramen noodles. He had beef flavored noodles and George had oriental. Then George had to leave. For her appointment. It was hard convincing the gunslinger that he couldn't go with her, but after promising that she would only be gone for 20 minutes tops, he relented.

George would not be back in 20 minutes.

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Darien wasn't in the best of moods today. His bad moods were never very random, and when they happened, he took a sort of perverse pleasure in being angry. It was catharic to lash out - though if he tried doing that to what he was upset at right now, well, he'd be fired faster than you could snap your fingers.

Not half an hour after he had gotten to the station today, he had been called to a crime scene. There at been a burglary at someone's home, they had woken up to find their things missing, and called the police. It all seemed pretty normal, when he had first gotten there. But then he had gone in to find that the cops called to the scene hadn't been careful. They had been messing with the safe the items were taken from, had trampled all over the floor and outside the house - they hadn't even waited for Darien to get there first, or even for a crime scene photographer.

He might have been a rookie when it came to working for the police, but even he knew that they weren't likely to find any decent evidence now. Oh, and he had complained about it, too. Darien had talked to the cops had taken the call, and when he pointed out that they had pretty much destroyed their chances for finding the thief, they had just brushed him off with claims that they weren't likely to find the guy, anyway. Darien had called up one of the lieutenants, then, to inform him of the incompetence going on. All he had gotten for his trouble was being blown off and a few vague threats along the lines of 'if you don't stick to doing your job, you'll be doing paperwork for the rest of your life'.

That had made it pretty clear that, whatever was stolen, someone in the force didn't want it found. He had taken notes on what he did find, which hadn't been much, and made sure that the forensic guys (who had showed up late) would send him records of the fingerprints they found. There hadn't been much else he could do, not without pushing it, and he knew better than that.

Darien had never felt more thankful for the lunch break in his entire life. Getting far away from the station wasn't hard, thanks to the shifting streets. He was going to go back when the break was over (even if he was sorely tempted to not return), but in the meantime, he had plans to take out his aggression on some food. Maybe a cheeseburger.

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The culture shock did not frighten the elf nearly so much as it annoyed him. His first desire was to learn how to drive one of those... wheel things. It had to be better than a camel, and it certainly looked faster. Par could have at least given him that bit of useful information.

Or any useful information. This place had a lot of cool shit and weird shit and fucked up shit but so far he couldn't figure out how to make any of it work. And with a city full of humans Luse was more likely to get stares than useful contacts or work.

Not knowing what to do with himself in this place quickly became boring. That didn't mean he was entirely useless. He could still navigate through just about any city, even a city which he suspected moved. More magical bullshit probably created by a constipated wizard or something. There were plenty of things the elf mused about.

Like what sort of valuable things the rich people had.

Luse found himself crawling through a window he happened to jimmy open. The house was dark. No one home as far as he could tell. Crow, these people didn't even have tall fences or dogs or armored guards or anything. In a place like this, a forcefully opened window was practically an invitation.

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Luse's field of vision was limited to that of a grinning skeletal jester, their faces only inches apart. "WAKEY, WAKEY! EGGS AND BAKEY!"

Lusiphur's eyebrows knitted into a glare. "Par..."

"HEY BUDDY! LONG TIME NO SEE."

"Par..."

"Hey, that redhead from the guild was pretty cute."

Luse pushed the imp a couple steps back from him. The two met occasionally when Luse either slept or happened to be knocked unconscious. Around them was a void, an absence of dream or thought which Par had shaped himself.

"What do you mean was?"

"OH, you know... nothing but the usual trouble you get into--"

"Par?"

"--I mean, really, it's not as bad as Widowmaker--"

"Paaaarrr?" Luse's lips formed a nasty smile expressing his annoyance with the self proclaimed Eve.

"--or your ex-girlfriend Beth, heh heh. Remember her? I'm sure you do. You shot her in the head--"

"PAR."
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