Darker London

For the long flight back to London, the survivors of the auctioneers had been sedated (by choice) so they could rest up. There was no need for them to be feeling trapped in a tiny plane for hours.

They were then transported to Peter's hospital and set up in four private rooms that were next door to each other. They could have their run of the place if they wanted, but privacy as well. Razvan, however, found that he didn't so much want to be alone after so long in that damn cage. Instead he left his room behind and made his way unsteadily into ALicia's room. Both Trent and Reggie were set up across from them. "Hey," he said gently. "How are you feeling? Do you want me to show you are? We could go get some food. I sort of want to eat every thing in the entire world."

Finding instructions to build a pipe bomb was ludicrously easy, so much so that Nova did it while sitting on the toilet at the safe house, scrolling through an instruction page and writing down what she would need. It was still early in the afternoon and there was plenty of time.

So Nova borrowed the van and left the safe house, saying she needed a break. No one would have been surprised - she had spent the last week stalking around like a caged panther with too much energy to burn.

The hardware store stocked everything she needed to make the bomb (criminally easy) and buying it all together didn't even flag her on some sort of register.

( Read more... )

There had been another potential buyer the previous day, and while they had been standing, Razvan had passed out and landed hard on the floor of the cage, his head slamming against the bars. That had earned him punishment by cattle prod, though after they had all been given the smallest amount of food.

Now the captors returned, and signalled for them all to stand again, and Razvan was seriously considering whether or not it was worth it to pretend to faint again. Sure he would be shocked painfully, but if they got more food afterwards- And then the captors said the words which flooded him with relief.

"Stand up again, you pieces of shit. Another buyer coming through." And then, when he was making his way back to the door he said over his shoulder, "this one's a priest. So fucking weird."

Razvan sagged against the bars in relief and he signalled to the others. "It's my friend," he whispered. "He's here, fucking finally. Gonna have to act like I hate him. Safer. But it's my friend. I'll get us out of this."

Standing was torture.

After being drained by Alicia, Razvan had slept for hours. He hadn't even had the energy to eat the soup they had given him until he woke up and it had long gone cold and congealed. It did nothing to sate his hunger either, instead it made him feel queasy.

He wanted more.

And then their captors had come to rattle their cages and inform them they all had to stand because a buyer was on their way. Razvan's body was wasted and while he made it to his feet by using the bars to pull himself up, once there he swayed dangerously. His head was so heavy and it pounded against his skull. He moved closer to Alicia's cage, while the captors were focusing on other things.

He was just going to avoid what happened yesterday.

"Alicia," he whispered. "If they try to take you-" God he hated the idea of it, but Alicia could die- "-if you let me what was it, borrow your spirit? I can try to help you. I can't do it without touching you." And he knew he couldn't break out of the cage so honestly he had no idea what he was going to try if that was the case. But he had to try something, right? "Standing. So difficult."

While they had been provided with water, the only one of them who had been fed anything since the granola bars was Alicia. And Razvan understood that it was not only because she didn't need to be kept as weak as they did due to the threat of soulsucking, but also because Alicia wasn't immortal and the three demons were. He got it, sure. But fuck did he want something to eat. Literally anything.

( Mmmmm )

It hadn't been a particularly restful night for Razvan. Someone in the complex, far in the distance, had spent nearly the entire night sobbing. He had only fallen asleep through pure exhaustion, his hands clamped over his ears. He was awakened by footsteps outside his cage, and when he blinked his eyes open, he saw what he had been dreading.

Captors with cattle prods.

He scrambled up and into a corner of the cage, his back pressed up against the bars. "No! Nonono! Look, I'll cooperate!" The words tumbled out of his mouth, but the captors didn't pay the slightest bit of attention as the shoved the cattle prods between the bars and turned them on.

Electricity arced through his body, pain flaring and twisting him into awful positions. He didn't even realise he was screaming until the shocks stopped. He was left panting, dragging heavy and desperate breaths in and out until the shocks started again.

His captors shocked him over and over again until Razvan couldn't even move and his vision was tunnelling. They immediately moved on to the other demons, though they didn't bother with Alicia, considering she couldn't soulsuck anyone. Razvan felt like he shoud be fighting them, telling them to stop hurting his companions. But all he could do was whimper and cry.

When the door opened again, Razvan had been dozing on the floor of his cage. He sound woke up, loud and definitive. He opened his eyes to see several people swarm into the container, dressed all in black. They were shouting directions at each other, but he was so completely out of it, it was hard to pick out any one thing.

( Awfulness )

They chatted a lot in the beginning, considering there was nothing else to do. Reggie told Razvan about the family he hadn't seen in over a year, and Razvan told Reggie he had people he cared about but gave no details. Alicia spoke every once in awhile, though Trent said nothing. Razvan was pretty sure if Peter showed up to rescue them all, Trent was the kind of demon who was going to end up in the secure ward.

( Moving on )

It felt like being on a roller coaster.

( I'm on a BOAT )

OOC: Originally posted by Lewis in 2009 but we forgot and wrote things as if Magnus was still about so reposting NOW!

Getting back to London with Magnus in tow was even more difficult than finding him in the first place. Allanah took the first opportunity she had to find a very large bin bag and stuff Magnus inside, which made things marginally easier. It took a few bags to accommodate his weight.

Despite the cold conditions, Allanah was soaked through with sweat and extremely tired by the time she reached the Robert Macgavillary Memorial Hospital. The weather was bad enough that cloaking wasn't as difficult a matter as on some days, but it still took effort. Effort was something quite high on Allanah's list of things to avoid right now.

So it was that she strode into the hospital with her prize and dumped it in front of the reception desk. "Someone else can deal with it," she declared. "Inconspicuously." It wouldn't do to have any of the normal people see her bringing a man into the hospital in a rubbish bag...

Hope was nervous as she climbed out of the Uber and stepped towards Joss' door. Of course nervous on Hope just looked like 'loud'. Joss was the first person she had liked in this way for a long time. After losing Tasha she had lost hope she might ever feel anything like it again, but those fuzzy feelings were starting.

God she had missed them.

Clutching the flowers she had brought for Leon's family in her hand, Hope rang the bell and then stared up at the most impressive house she had ever seen. Sure, Hope lived in a manor, but this place was unbelievable.

It had taken months of pretending to be Olivia and Norman Babcock, before any of it paid off. And honestly if 'paid off' meant 'someone disappeared' it didn't really feel like a win. A man from their parish had now been missing for two weeks and the rumour mill suggested that he he had left town with his mistress.

Norman Babcock didn't believe it.

The second the arrived home from church, Razvan closed the door behind them and he dropped the cheery Norman exterior. "We should tell the boss," he said, not even bothering to take his coat off. The plan on reporting in had always been for them to head off to a hotel somewhere and call from there. A married couple heading off on a minibreak was completely normal, and making the call over hotel wifi made it harder to pinpoint to a specific person.

Using the credit cards that had been supplied in her new name (and that she didn't have to worry about paying for), Nova had descended into an online shopping spree for board games and puzzles. She couldn't possibly care less about any of these things, so she tried to pick a large range of things. She probably bought too many, especially considering they weren't going to be playing them. Oh well. Maybe she and Razvan would get drunk some night and really bust them out.

Her first night sleeping in the house had been weird and slightly restless, to the point where she'd grumpily given up on sleep in the early hours of the morning and gone downstairs to watched horror movies on Netflix until Razvan got up in the morning.

( The horror movies were probably a bad idea. )

Razvan felt like an idiot.

He was wearing jeans like some commoner!

They were so scratchy and awful and oh god how did anyone wear things like this?! He had asked Serenity for help and she had found him a t-shirt with some kind of movie reference on it from her closet. There were clothes already in the house Peter had provided for them but he had to get there and apparently he was getting there dressed like this.

And his head was so cold.

He dropped by the hospital, ready to pick up Nova and head out to the town which would be their home for the next however long it took really. There was a car there to pick up as well, registered in their fake names and full of possessions which weren't really theirs. It felt strange to be doing something like this, but he trusted Peter and, perhaps more importantly to Razvan, Peter trusted him.

He wouldn't wear jeans for just anyone.

Squirming to think of Nova's reaction to his new look, Razvan entered the hospital and headed towards her office.

Peter had to go back to work.

It wasn't because he needed the money, or because he was bored and uninspired. It was simply because he was needed, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn't ignore that forever. It was slightly inconvenient that the day he finally decided enough was enough, his best friend was in a different city, but waiting for Thomas to return was just another excuse.

He could do this himself.

Right?

( Awwwww )

Nova had gotten herself all gothed up for the night, wearing a skintight trousers and shirt combo that fell somewhere between supervillain chic and mad max-lite. Her hair was drawn back severely and her make up was no less severe. It was all both to help her blend in with these weirdos, and to act as somewhat of a disguise. It certainly wasn't what she looked like most days, nor was it what she looked like when usually coming to these things. Usually at these vampire balls Nova was just playing herself and her only motive was blood. These places were a buffet as well as being - and she would never admit this to anyone else - intensely erotic. Nova couldn't help it: there was blood everywhere! Being offered up to her by beautiful young things, playing along at whatever game they were there for. Nova didn't ask questions, nor did she judge them.

Not much anyway.

Nova strode up the drive to Razvan's house, stilettos taller than she was used to but not too bad to navigate with. She may just have to keep a little more focused.

She rang the bell and awaited her prince charming.

The fact that it was April Fools Day had not gotten past Peter as he frantically searched the hospital for one of his helicopter pilots.

Abby had made the call to Dr Rothschild in Bristol and security was now keeping an eye on Amaris. Peter did not, however, assume that would be enough to keep her from harming anyone in the long run. They needed to get to Bristol and retrieve her so she could be safely contained in RMMH. He could not, however, find any of his pilots anywhere.

With shaking muscles, thanks to his hell of a seizure earlier, Peter traversed the hospital and texted Thomas to see if he knew where Stephie was.

He hadn't yet told Thomas that they knew where Amaris was.

When Thomas messaged back that Stephie was in the hospital with Tasha, Peter did a 180 and headed back towards his daughter's room. There he found both of them, cuddled up together, and he smiled gently at the sight of it. "Sorry to interrupt," he said softly, "I uhm...Stephie? I need to ask a favour and I really hate to ask it."

Peter gathered the necessary items on his desk and he squared them perfectly in the centre, all lined up beside his pencils. If Peter was anything, he was extraordinarily neat for no reason at all. He wanted the papers all ready so it would be harder for Nova and Razvan to refuse his proposal, though that was just a little underhanded. The mission he needed to send them on was just too important-

Clearing his throat, he pressed the red intercom button and tried to speak with authority, "could Razvan Dumitra and Nova Montaigne please come see the hospital director in his office asap?"

Down in her office, Razvan pulled away from kissing Nova as if she'd bitten him on the nose. "Are there fucking cameras in here?!"

She had said she was dating him and Razvan wasn't entirely sure what to say to that. It was a strange concept, dating. He was dating someone? As far as he knew, they were just fucking.

He stuck his head around the door of her office, knocking lightly as he did so. "Can I come in?"

Having once been an angel, Peter could sense when other angels and even demons were near. It was a handy ability, even if the power wasn't strong enough to tell one supernatural being from another. Deirdre could tell at once if a supernatural that was nearby was someone she knew or someone she didn't. All Peter knew was that out of nowhere there was a demon suddenly somewhere in his home. And just in case it wasn't a friendly demon like Deirdre, Peter was going to go seek the demon out alone.

( Reminders )