Gabe Novak is "Joe King" (likegravity) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-10-21 01:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | joker, memnoch |
Who: Abel and ‘Joseph King’ with a cast of thousands.
What: Meeting, Issues, Bribing.
Where: Outside of Hamartia
When: Today.
Warnings: Joker log. Standard warnings apply. Abel log. Standard warnings also apply. (For the newbies: dead people, references to genocide & torture, along with general creepiness, awkwardness, and blunt honesty.)
After last week’s encounter with LW, a few decisions had been made. Security had been upped, certain people had to die, and different ones had to be hired. He wouldn’t lie about being around Hamartia, hovering a bit more since learning Janet lived there. He’d watched her leave a few times, been satisfied with things. LW if nothing else could keep a secret. Even if her sister (his sister, but he was still angry with Zinnia) had forgotten to share certain ones. Certain ones which hadn’t be a secret in the first place. Trade-offs had been passed onto more trust-worthy people, ones who wouldn’t get targeted by the first pretty thief that walked by. Securing the proper blueprints - handed to him personally the Joker was feeling fairly positive. The news wasn’t focused on him, but he could make this work. Things would work out eventually and his plans would be enacted. Just like they were supposed to. The bench two blocks over from Hamartia was across from a bus stop, but he made a point of being unobtrusive. His hair was clean today, he was dressed normally and no make-up in sight. He took a chance with glancing over the town hall’s blueprints in public, treating them like a newspaper or business magazine. He was oblivious to the ghosts which hovered around him - specifically of a girl with scars identical to his. She was in her early twenties, blonde, and dressed simply. Jean shorts, a white t-shirt which clung to well endowed curves, and sneakers made her plain. There was no mistaking the look in her eye though or the shouting she kept directing at the Joker. She’d been yelling at him for four years and he still hadn’t noticed her. Dumb was a good word to describe her if one could hear what she was saying. “-AND IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAD THE RIGHT TO KILL ME VINCE. YOU KNOW THAT. I WAS DOING WHAT I HAD TO. DON’T YOU CARE? DIDN’T YOU? IF IT HAD BEEN ME, YOU WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME. I WOULDN’T HAVE KILLED YOU. NO, I’D HAVE CHECKED IF YOU WERE ALRIGHT. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE IT, I DID WHAT I COULD-” It was here she began to break down and cry, stepping away from the unaware man to cover her sliced face in her hands. No one looked at her as she walked by or seemed to notice her shaking sobs - nor did she look for anyone else. The day was still young, but already Abel Cassiel had made a few decisions of his own. The first was that he would never again allow Toby to get him drunk on whiskey the night before he had a double shift, no matter how much she insisted he needed it. This was partially because she always let him crash on her couch and she lived on the floor below him, which meant a hungover trip upstairs in the morning if he wanted to change out of his drinking clothes before work. It was also partially because he was forced to make that hungover trip at an ungodly hour so that he wouldn’t wake up Toby’s daughter Lily on his way out. The second decision he made was that the world’s worst whiskey hangover warranted an indulgence - he would forgo public transit today and splurge on a cab to take him to work, in the interest of not revisiting his stomach contents on the city bus. He had choked down a few slices of dry toast and about a gallon of water, and hoped that his nerves would calm by the time he started a day that would be sure to require composure and a strong stomach. It was this second decision that resulted in Abel’s unusual departure from his daily routine. Instead of waiting at the bus stop with his headphones turned up high so as to avoid the exchange of social pleasantries with total strangers, he was across the street, waiting at the pickup-dropoff spot down the street from Hamartia that was frequented by cab companies. This resulted in Abel’s uncomfortable proximity to a very shrill, very clearly upset young woman who had more or less collapsed in tears at the side of the road. His stomach churned. There was a chance that he was going to be sick right here on the street. With no cabs in sight, he sat down on a low stone wall a few feet down from the crying woman and tried very hard not to stare at her. People hurried past, but none so much as looked up as she sniffled and bawled into her hands. Did they ignore her because they couldn’t see anyone there? Or because they would rather get to work on time than stop and listen to another poor soul like themselves? He couldn’t be sure, so as he sat there on the stone wall and watched. After a minute he casually reached into his bag and pulled out his cell. He pressed random buttons and scrolled through menu items for a few seconds before lifting the phone to his ear and pretending to make a call. He kept his voice low as he spoke, angling his face toward her the men and women hurried past. If it turned out that she wasn’t really here, at least he had the appearance of a man making a phone call. “Miss?” He asked, a crease appearing on his brow as he tried to catch the girl’s eye. “ Can I -- Do you need any help?” The crowd couldn’t and wouldn’t see the girl and Abel’s movements appeared normal, as intended. The only one who did glance up was the blonde herself, startled and breaking from her crying at it. “You’re talking to me?” Her hands fell from her face, revealing the cuts - not scars, these had never had a chance to heal - across her cheeks. She pushed forward, closing the space in between them, reaching for his shoulders and staring him in the eye. “Can you see me? Nobody can, he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t hear me. Nobody does.” Her lower lip wobbled and tears threatened to burst again. She pointed at the man on the bench, still reading away and oblivious to her. “Him.” It was all Abel could do to keep from pulling back, recoiling from the distress and urgency with which she closed the gap between them. He didn’t even have time to react to the angry snarl of cuts on her face; desperation oozed from her every pore like a musk, so strong he could practically taste it, heavy and unpleasant in the air. Yeah. She was definitely dead. Somehow, he kept his poker face even as he felt the heat of her breath on his face and smelled the fresh blood, drying to the colour of old pennies against her pale cheeks. His stomach rolled one more time but he focused instead on his reaction, feigning nonchalance as she grabbed onto the shoulders of his jacket. He couldn’t appear to be jerked around by invisible clutches without drawing notice, so he stood up as if he were simply looking for a cab and managed to brush her off. “Yes, I can see you,” he hissed very softly between clenched teeth, shooting her a meaningful look and jerking his chin in the direction of everyone else. “But they can’t. If you want my help, try not to make me look like a crazy person.” The girl, perhaps more woman then child, at least in body if not her mind sniffled. “Why you?” A Creation perhaps would piece it together. She was human but had seen strange things. There was enough of a guess for that. After a deep breath - not necessary but habit - she moved the few steps over to the bench, releasing the man who could see her. “It was him,” she announced, voice loud and unmistakable. “It was him. He’s why I’m not right. He’s why I’m here.” She tossed a glare at the man, clearly attempting to be brave. However, there was no mistaking the fear in her eyes and the distance she put between them. Two feet were her limit. She wouldn’t go any closer, not even as others jostled about. There were other people, people who didn’t seem to notice each other or the walkers-by. The area seemed crowded as people kept to themselves, muttering or crying in turn. The blonde girl didn’t look at them, nor did they look at each other. It was simply a swarm of ghosts, as of yet, unaware that someone could see them was about them. Tracking the woman’s movements with a wary eye, Abel still had to suppress a smile when he heard the question. Why you? It was a fairly reasonable thing to ask, because he was nothing special. He was the ordinary man. Average and common in every aspect except the fact that he was literally surrounded by dead people. Why Abel? As usual, he would be the last to know. The cautious buffer of space that she kept between herself and the man on a bench did not go unnoticed. Abel thought the man looked unremarkable from the back, but that really didn’t tell him much. In this world unremarkable people could talk to ghosts and leap tall buildings, so it was important to operate with caution. He busied his free hand with the strap of his bag where it lay against his shoulder and fidgeted a little as he looked down at his shoes. “And you want me to -” his voice wavered as he hesitated a moment too long, wondering if the man she accused had anything to do with the rearrangement of her face. He caught himself and cleared his throat. “You want me to speak to the, ah, client for you?” Still he spoke to his phone, but loud enough that his words would carry to her where she stood between himself and the man on the bench. If she expected an answer, she didn’t press it. She merely nodded when he offered - as it was an offer - to speak to the man in front of her. “He went by Vince. Even if he doesn’t now.” She shuddered, arms crossing below her chest. “Ask him about Brea. That’s me.” She kept her eyes on him, still shaking. Something about the man next to her clearly didn’t sit well with her, beyond the obvious. “He’s got to tell you. He’s gotta.” Abel made a small, irritated noise in the back of his throat and held back a sigh. Spirits, of course, were not generally ones for coherent conversations. So he tried to be patient, pretending to listen to someone through his phone and nodding as he did so. “Mmhm. Okay, but -- what do you need? The client, is... are they responsible for...” He trailed off as his hand waved in the space in front of him, in a gesture that was meant to indicate both her visible injuries and the fact that she was dead. “Are they responsible for your... bankruptcy?” He finished lamely, wincing a bit and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Because I’d personally like to keep all of my assets intact.” Brea wasn’t terribly intelligent - even for a ghost. She shivered and pointed at the man again. “Him,” she stressed. “He never said really why. It didn’t make sense, I didn’t do it on purpose-” She bit her lip then, refusing to go on. Her head jerked in the man’s direction, just as he refolded his paper and moved it into a folder. It was tucked under his arm in a moment as he pushed himself from the bench. Glancing at his watch, he began to move past Abel. The girl moaned, burying her head in her hands, before following the man - close enough for his scars, however crudely sewn, to be seen. “Please!” As soon as he stepped aside to avoid a collision with Vince and his spectral shadow, the decision was made. Clearly the woman’s spirit was fixating on this man as a relic from her life, and her movements were defined only by wherever he went. If Abel was going to help her somehow, he needed to follow right along behind her -- and he wanted to help. Any doubt he’d felt was gone now; it had been that final, forlorn ‘please’ that swayed him in the end. He had no choice but to abandon his fake phone call and set off after them at a trot. He watched the pair make their way down the sidewalk ahead of him, and saw a frightened little girl in grown-up clothing. He saw her tremble with the heat of her rage and the strength of her fear, trapped in orbit and always unable to break free. To have the ability to release her, and do nothing -- surely that would as be unforgivable as having delivered the killing blow that put her there in the first place. He had to help. With an unwavering slant to his mouth, he began to lengthen his strides and close the distance between himself and the other two. He paid attention to the people around him on the street. When a lull in the pedestrian traffic came, with no one approaching from either direction, he finally called out. “Vince?” Brea had continued to cry into her hands, even as the medium followed behind her and the scarred man. As for the Joker, he was unconscious of those behind him. He was merely moving through traffic on the street - fairly little, but enough to provoke dodging - getting ready to head back to Bathos. Later, he’d check in with his sisters and... Vince? His reflexes and acting skills were good, but his steps slowed. If he turned around it would be acknowledging that he’d once went by the name. His steps decreased in speed until he could look about properly - no one, on the street here. No one that could be called to other then him. Son of a bitch. He came to a stop, slowly turning around and facing the man. He sized him up as casually as possible, hands tucking into his pockets - finding a knife and his wallet. He didn’t recognize him and he had a memory for faces. But why else would he think he was Vince - a name he hadn’t used since Seattle? “Me?” he asked, putting his most innocent expression on his face. Dumb, slightly clueless. “I didn’t see anyone about but- you sure you got the right guy?” Casual. Fake it. Find the reason then make sure it didn’t happen again... Brea remained in between the two, pointing at the scarred man again. “Him. He doesn’t use it now.” He had been watching closely and slowed his own steps in accordance. By the time the man (Vince-but-not-Vince) had turned all the way around, there was still a cushion of space between them, with Brea in the middle. Abel just looked at her and nodded. It was a tiny signal, no more than a dip of his chin, meant just for her. Meant to say, I got it. Not-Vince’s face was a mask that told Abel nothing but lies. Every instinct in his body was inclined to accept his confusion and nonchalance as genuine, but the puckered skin of Brea’s cheeks insisted otherwise. He tried to keep his expression neutral and mirrored the other man’s casual body language, hiking the strap of his utilitarian bag up higher on his shoulder. “Okay, not Vince,” he conceded with a small shrug. “Then what are you going by now?” A good question. He had countless names and aliases, tailored for different people. What he needed to know was why he thought he was Vince. “I’d rather know why you think I’m Vince.” He weighed things - if this man came from Los Angeles, linking things to Joe King would be dangerous. He didn’t need a surname though, did he? He traced the knife in his pocket, pad of his finger nicked against the blade though he missed it. “But I’m Joe. Why?” Brea said nothing, beginning to chew on a nail, looking back and forth between the two. Silently, Abel wished that she would stop fidgeting. She was standing just to the left of his line of sight, and it took a great amount of effort to keep his gaze from wandering over to her movements every time she indulged one of the bad habits that she’d retained after life. Something told him that a wayward look might not go unnoticed, and he wanted to avoid a mistake like that. He wasn’t even sure why, but it was more than just the general unease that he was bound to feel as he stood so close to a killer. That’s what you are, aren’t you? As soon as the thought appeared in his head, he felt it to be true. With the spirits he’d seen who clung to a specific living person, the vast majority lingered around a brother or a wife or a child - but a disheartening few held fast to the people who had mistreated and abused them in life, trapped with the ones who had betrayed them and ultimately been their end. These were the unlucky few. They were the spirits who cried for help in the most gut-wrenching cadence. As Abel stared past Brea at the man who called himself Joe, he quickly thought back to the moments when he’d first noticed her there on the sidewalk. What had she said? “We share a mutual acquaintance,” he finally offered, head cocked to the side as he regarded the live one. “Although I don’t know if that’s the best way to put it, and I don’t think ‘we both know the same person’ is quite right, either. I think it’s been some time since you two last spoke. Should I jog your memory?” He spoke in bold tones, chin held firmly aloft while his eyes were alert. There wasn’t any way to respond to that. His guess was that he’d killed someone close to the man, a sister, a lover. Someone who had passed by and had mattered to him. Which meant he was screwed. He sized the man up once more, wondering if he had a weapon and whether if he did, he could work around it. “Is that so?” he asked, eyebrow rising. He stepped towards the man, nearly walking into Brea. She stumbled back, looking to Abel. “Perhaps we should talk this over elsewhere. I’ve met a fair amount of people before - and you could be mistaken.” He better be. Joe’s quick-quick shuffled steps that aimed to close some of the space between them surprised Abel, but he matched the steps with two more of his own in the same direction. Away from Joe, though he also stepped sideways so that he might still be within earshot of Brea. Not for the first time, he wondered if there was something about him - some particular quality that he himself couldn’t sense - that made others believe he was stupid. “I’m fine here,” he assured the man with a shake of his head, holding up one hand at about chest height, palm out. A bracing act. Now, here, this was the tricky part. Should he just come out with it, straightforward honesty as usual? Yeah, maybe. The traffic on the street was fortunately still light, with only a few people visible at the far end of the block, so he wasn’t concerned about causing some kind of scene. Joe didn’t strike him as the type, but still he held off on admitting the truth. Helping Brea achieve some sort of catharsis or closure wasn’t necessarily reliant on the revelation that he was a medium. “Our friend - she’s blonde, stands about this high?” He indicated with his hand the approximate place on his torso that Brea came up to. “And she’s got a smile that goes from ear to ear. Looks a lot like yours.” There was only a sigh at the response. Of course. Why make this easier for the both of them? Stupid self-defense mechanisms. He attempted to reach for his cell phone, just in case he needed back-up. They were near enough to his warehouse that they’d be here quick enough. “As you wish,” he said simply. Head cocked to the side, he actually had to think about it. He’d known a fair amount of blonde women, in various scenarios. It wasn’t until the smile came up that he had any inkling. The girlfriend from LA. The last one. Most definitely dead, he’d taken care of it. Considering that she’d ratted him out to a gang leader, stood by as he was beaten and interrogated, then tortured - and walked out on him as he was left to bleed to his death - the cuts in her cheeks and her death was a light punishment. Still, he kept his cool. “Not ringing any bells.” Because they wouldn’t. Even if he was Vince. “I’ve dated a bunch of blondes though. Not so many who look like that-” He laughed then, dryly. Alright the boy could have heard of what had happened to Vince. No one had found his body and his supposed death via Chelsea Grin could have been linked, causing a few theories. A hand rose to his scars, rubbing idly at them. Brea hissed, moving to Abel’s side. She whispered in his ear, “He’s lying, he did it, it was him-” And the Joker spoke again, eyebrow raised, leaving her to cut herself off. “Do you bother every guy who’s cut up because of her? I’m over the experience but others might find talking about it...traumatizing.” “Nope. You’re the first,” was his deadpanned response. He could feel the heat radiating off Brea’s body as she stood next to him, could see her face flushed with colour as her emotions mounted. Once again he was struck by how vital and alive she seemed, despite the slices that marred her cheeks. Abel’s skin crawled where her bare arm brushed his, and he rubbed at the spot as if the touch had burned him. Of course, his discomfort was only because she seemed so real. He could have reached out and taken her hand, or patted her shoulder in what he would have hoped was a comforting manner. He could do these things, but no one else. This man was responsible for that, and suddenly Abel was having a hard time remembering precisely why he was holding back. “Anything you wanna ask?” His tone had changed because he was speaking to Brea now, although his eyes were still trained on the scarred man. Not-Vince-Not-Joe. Abel didn’t care if he misunderstood the words as directed at him. “Or maybe tell? Now’s your chance.” Brea remained hovering behind, not saying anything else. The Joker remained still - having stopped advancing once the boy moved back. “Why me?” he asked, feigning innocence once more. The truth was that it didn’t matter. No one could pin it on him. If this boy accused him of murdering that girl (what the hell had been her name?), there was nothing he could do about it. He’d covered his tracks and moved on. “Otherwise, go on. I have places to be. Things to do. Time to kill.” He tapped his foot, waiting. Abel wasn’t even listening now as the other man responded to questions that he had assumed were meant for him. Through the haze of slight incredulity that seemed to be filling his head, Abel heard words being spoken but paid them little mind. Instead he had turned back to look at Brea with questions in his eyes, blatantly looking at her and making no attempt to disguise it for the first time since he’d accosted the man with the matching scars. “What is your problem?” He muttered under his breath, eyes flashing a warning glance. Clearly she had picked the worst moment to become mysteriously deaf-mute. He didn’t know if it was fear or something deadlier that held her bravery captive, and he didn’t care. “Remember the part about not making me look like a crazy person?” Brea blinked at him, fingers rising to her mouth again. “I’m not doing anything.” She jerked her head towards ‘Vince’. “That’s him, he did it. It’s all his fault. Even if he said otherwise. He did this.” The Joker seeing the man seemingly address something to his left, took advantage of the moment. He stepped forward, raising empty, peace-offering hands. “Look. Is there something I’m missing?” “Yeah, I got that part,” he reminded her pointedly, trying very hard not to roll his eyes or do something else indicative of his immense frustration - at the situation, at this dead girl for giving him absolutely nothing to work with, and especially at himself. For several reasons, only one of which involved how much worse this was making his hangover. He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose between thumb and middle finger for a moment, in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure that seemed to be building up behind his eyes. “Okay, look -” here he turned back to the man, watching his advancement with cautious awareness. This time, however, he didn’t take any equivalent steps in the same direction. The man was now several feet closer, and Abel decided that a different approach was going to be necessary. “I think she wants you to admit that you killed her.” His words were simple, his tone straightforward. He had no idea what sort of response to expect. Out of everything that could have been a reason for why this man was hounding him, this was inconceivable. A surprised expression crossed his face, one too quick to be hid before he looked in the direction the man had been looking in. A beat later, it made sense. He was a creation, this was his power, which meant he was screwed. He passed a hand over his jaw, rubbing at his scars as he tried to think of a plan. There had to be a way out of this - he wasn’t going to be killed like this. Running his fingers over the raised bumps, an idea came to him. Eyes intent, expression tight, he demanded, “Ask her how I got the scars. Before you judge me, have her answer that.” The girl flinched visibly as the scarred man looked at her. She began to shake, not looking at either of them, scuffing her feet on the ground. At last, the mask seemed to slip. Abel caught just a glimpse of gears turning in that one unguarded moment of comprehension, but it was enough. He had seen enough. He’d been working at the church for six months now, and had experience telling a lot of humans a lot of things about their dead loved ones. Most of them were members of the congregation - faithful, receptive to his ability and unsurprised when he spoke to the other side -, but sometimes people would show up and openly declare their skepticism, or their intent to reveal the whole church as a bunch of religious frauds. Abel never let that happen. The point, of course, was that all these humans reacted the same. Shock. Awe. Denial. It was never just a split second of processing - unless they had prior knowledge of so-called ‘supernatural’ phenomena. In Abel’s world that meant that they were either practicing Spiritualists or creations, but the man with the scars did not look like part of the congregation. While he tried to decide whether it was more dangerous to have his ability outed to a creation stranger or a human one, the man stopped rubbing the pads of his fingers against his scars and spoke. This time, Abel listened. “Well, you heard him,” he turned to look at the woman’s spirit with a solemn expression. He remembered a fragment of something she’d said to him earlier - something about how she didn’t do it on purpose - and he remembered that she’d clammed up after that. He tried to appear as nonthreatening as possible when he asked his next question. “Will you tell me, Brea?” Brea. So that was the bitch’s name. His expression didn’t change, merely rubbing at the scars, attempting to look as forlorn as possible. The problem with this was that he didn’t know if the girl would lie - could lie. He couldn’t even see her. How would he know how to fill in the gaps? In this case, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, would play in his favor. The girl continued to shake, shuffling back from Abel. “I - I had to. They made - look, it’s not what you think. They made me. I had no choice.” There was a brief pause, before she glanced to ‘Vince’ and she choked. “I didn’t mean it, okay? I didn’t, I was just reporting. It was suspicious. You were never around-” She seemed to have forgotten ‘Vince’ couldn’t hear her, addressing him and shaking. “Your hours were off. I had to tell them. I didn’t think they’d beat you for it, I didn’t think-” She paused and took a deep breath. “Okay maybe? But I had to. That was my job in the gang, not even there, that was what I did. Looking for the stuff that wasn’t right - I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. Just for you to do the right thing. I didn’t know you caused the fire, I didn’t-” She began to cry again, pressing her hands against her sliced mouth as she grew hysterical. After some amount of time the Joker risked speaking. “What did she say?” “That you started a fire.” He watched Brea as she recoiled, but he made no move to follow. If there was still a chance that he could help, he didn’t want to spook her. “That she was just doing her job, even though she probably knew that you would get hurt. And when I first saw her - actually, I heard her before I saw her. I heard her screaming. At you.” Now he turned back to the man, the expression on his face unreadable. “She was screaming that you had no right to kill her, that you shouldn’t have done it. So, what? She ratted you out and you wanted revenge?” He didn’t sound particularly judgemental of either of them; though he certainly had his opinions, for once he kept them to himself. Brutal honesty seemed a lot less important in the face of an admitted killer. Well damn it. He didn’t attempt to look remorseful, allowing natural irritation shine through. Vince and his past couldn’t be linked to Joe King nor the Joker - it would only be a hop, skip, and jump away from Gabe Novak and his sisters. His hand stilled from where it rubbed his scars, looking away from where the girl was supposed to be - to her relief - then to the man. “Not exactly. Ratting out was understandable.” A step forward. “As was allowing our superiors to kidnap me in our own home.” Another. “Standing by as they interrogated me?” his hands fell, open palmed to the air with a shrug. “Forgivable.” His eyes met the man’s then, look dark and without any budge. “Watching them cut my face open without making a sound and leaving - by her choice alone - me to die?” One more step. “Call it revenge. Call it a liability. Call it a problem when she was living with the men who did this to me. I was justified.” Abel matched the man’s sinister gaze with his own unblinking stare. This time he didn’t retreat when the other advanced; he watched the scars come closer while he stood his ground. Still he could sense Brea’s spirit relaxing, could hear it in the quieting of her ragged sobs. So, it turned out that she wasn’t entirely the blameless victim she had made herself out to be. (This was hardly surprising; encountering spirits who had the correct explanation for their presence here would probably make his ability much easier to handle, and they couldn’t have that.) The question remained of what needed to be done in order to set her- Abel caught himself before he finished the thought. He had no idea if free was the right term for what happened when they moved on, especially for those who lived less than honorable lives. “I get it. You had reasons,” he said simply, rubbing one hand against the back of his neck. His headache felt a little better, which was something. “I’m not trying to arbitrate anything, I just...” He sighed, weary. “If I can figure out why she’s stuck here, that means there’s one less ghost I have to avoid on the streets.” Which meant there were others. He bit back a curse, keeping his expression as calm as possible. The Joker was far from delusional - Brea wasn’t the first person he’d killed, nor the last. What if there were others? Twice is coincidence wouldn’t work here. “Perhaps she needs to realize that she was at fault as well - and what she did, caused her own death.” He waited, hoping some change in expression from this man would reveal that he was right. If not, then he’d need to get rid of the medium instead of the ghost. Brea shook where she stood, avoiding the man’s look. She shuffled her feet, moving back. “I didn’t - he’s bad, I’ve seen him.” She sent a fearful glance towards ‘Vince’. “He’s bad, he-” She sat down, right there on the pavement, wrapping her arms around her knees, a tiny cannonball on the ground. “I didn’t, I mean - you don’t know - he was never around, they asked me, they told me to watch...” A sob before she was silent, face red and thinking it over. “I didn’t mean it. Not - not really...” Her whole body shook as she curled tighter, clearly without a care of what everyone saw. She gulped, but didn’t look up. “I’m sorry, I mean it - I’m sorry, Vince- or whoever-” Another sob. “Whoever you are.” She descended into tears, slowly paling as she did so. She didn’t look up again as she faded into a transparent outline, barely made out until she winked out of sight - making it seem as if she’d never been there. There was a fleeting moment when Brea was disappearing but not quite vanished, washed-out and colourless but still just barely corporeal, when Abel saw something. He didn’t have an explanation for it at the time, but later reflection would make it a bit clearer: for an instant, he’d seen this man’s other victims. When Brea’s spirit was hardly more than an insubstantial wisp of miasma hovering above the pavement, there was a flash. No, less than a flash - a glint of light that blazed for a heartbeat and revealed the bodies that surrounded them on the street, packed tight like processed fish in a pull-tab can. They were spirits, and there were hundreds of them. They filled the sidewalk and the street as far as he could see in a lightning-quick glance over the other man’s shoulder. Miraculously, Abel kept his features impassive and the glint of a thousand dead people disappeared along with Brea. He sighed again but this time it was different, a gust of tense air that came out in a whoosh. “You did it. She left, and she even apologized.” This last was said a bit wryly, as he doubted the value that Brea’s words would find with her killer. Plus, Abel was fairly certain that he’d just convinced a spirit that she actually deserved her murder. If he couldn’t speak dryly about it, he might have to start loathing himself before he could return to the privacy of his empty apartment. An eyebrow rose. “Did she really?” Now that was ridiculous. He couldn’t help his low chuckle, fishing in his pockets once more - looking about to see if anyone was paying much attention to them. They had to be gathering attention. “I don’t suppose you’ll be passing this information about, will you?” His look was casual, even if his stance was unwavering. “If not, I’d be willing to arrange things.” He remained cool, pulling something out of his pocket and then holding it higher - his wallet. “I prefer to not live in the past.” He smiled, scars pulled taut by the motion. “It’s important to learn from our mistakes.” When the murderer flashed his wallet and Abel realized that he was actually being offered a bribe in exchange for his silence, he had to laugh. It was something between a snicker and a guffaw, tinged with incredulity at the very suggestion as he simultaneously tried not to be offended. He reminded himself that bribes were an acceptable form of currency amongst criminals, and that it didn’t reflect on Abel - surely he didn’t look as if he could be paid off. “I don’t want any of your money,” he said with a shake of his head. He shifted his bag higher as it slid down his shoulder and held up both hands, fingers splayed in an attempt to indicate that he had no intention of accepting . “And I’m not going to tell anyone. You have my word. I have no interest in police work -- I just wanted to help her.” Diagnosed as a pathological liar in his youth, the Joker was fairly quick to guess that others were lying. Yet the near hysteric laugh, combined with his movements gave him enough of a guess. It could slide for now. It wasn’t enough of a link - and who would listen to him? “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, returning the wallet to his pocket. He knew better then to offer any mode of contact, taking advantage of the escape opportunity as soon as possible. He ducked his head, in an almost respectful nature, hand moving to an invisible brim. “I’ll be leaving you then. Nice to meet you...?” Yes. He’d be needing that. Most definitely. Somewhat taken aback by the faux-formal flair to a goodbye between strangers, Abel blinked. Yeah. This guy was running seriously high on creep factor, and now that the girl was gone there was no reason for Abel to stick around. “Just call me Cain’s brother,” he finally supplied as he turned to leave. It was an easy clue, and he couldn’t come up with any reasonable explanation as to why he had just offered his name to a murderer, but Abel was rarely as rational as he would like to believe. Maybe he had a death wish -- or maybe there was a tiny part of him that still believed it didn’t matter what he did in Hell. A quick glance down the street and he saw his bus trundling towards them, and he forgot all about his original plan to take a cab to work. All he cared about was putting as much distance as he could between himself and the man with the scars. He waited for a lull in traffic and darted across the street, clutching his bag against his side. By the time he reached the bus stop and cast his gaze back to the place where Brea had disappeared, her killer had moved on. Still, Abel imagined that he felt his presence. He felt it in the countless invisible victims that had lined the street, waiting for their chance to make themselves heard. Waiting for the day when their cries would rise above the rest. Waiting for the man with the scars. |