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While she was wary to begin with, the man passed muster and the two got to know each other a bit though she still wasn't sure of the cleverness of setting a fire.
The man (Jack) explained that he had travelled all the way from Washington on the west coast but conversation was interrupted by a sudden cold sweeping across the room, quenching the fire.
They heard a woman singing and when they went out to the external window they saw a beautiful ice blue woman skipping and dancing down the street, surrounded by an aura of cold. Her song pulled at the mind, calling people out onto the streets, but Jack made his roll and Nicky spent a faith to be temporarily immune to that particular mind affecting power.
Another woman who had been hidden further down the street wasn’t so lucky. She was siren-called and came running out onto the street. The creature advanced on her and screamed at her, knocking the woman down from the blast.
Nico responded the only way she knew how. With rifle shots from her carbine.
The creature cast a blue shield around herself which soaked some of the power from the bullets, whipping around afloating straight toward them. Several bullets later and it was right in front of Jack and Nico but before it could scream, Jack leapt over its head and tried to shoot it with a shotgun – missing but drawing its ire. It screamed at him, deafening him. Nico shot the heck out of it from behind and it soon collapsed.
Nico dropped down from the building (joys of le parkour) and checked to see that Jack was okay before chopping off the thing’s head and feet, wrapping the feet in cloth. They then went to check on the injured woman who lay unconscious and bleeding from the eyes and ears. Not a good sign. So Jack and Nico used a door as a makeshift stretcher, strapped the woman to it, and headed back for the university doctors.
On the way back they were attacked by a few leapers. Again Jack missed with his shotgun but this time got himself bitten.
Nico wasn’t sure how the hospital (as she’d come to think of it) would react to having a new patient dumped on their doorstop but she had nowhere else to take her. Dr. Gruber immediately took the patient into their makeshift surgical theatre and got to work trying to alleviate the pressure on her brain. Nico watched the surgery, still suspicious of Dr. Gruber but it all appeared to be above board as far as her limited first aid knowledge was concerned.
Afterwards Dr. Gruber offered to take a look at Jack’s wound since the man had a torn and bloodstained shirt. Jack lied and pretended it wasn’t his blood. Nico supported his claim, figuring that Jack was as suspicious of Dr. Gruber as she was.
That night they slept at the university in a spare classroom. Jack warned her he slept naked and she told him she didn’t care and to prove the point she immediately closed her eyes, snuggled into her own sleeping bag and went to sleep. She kept her gun by her hand, though. More out of habit than anything else.
She had the strangest dream (Infernal Visions – Castigation merit) where she saw a smiling demon who seemed eerily familiar who stood in the room with them (which was now better lit than before). The demon had a fixed expression with a wide grin showing sharp teeth. It's expressions could flick from one fixed look to another but without any motion in between (think Hexadecimal from ReBoot). It had a sharp-tipped tail gently waving behind it (think Geiger Alien tail), claws on long slender fingers, curved horns atop its brow, and torn wings that dripped blemished golden blood. Somehow it still managed to be handsome. Its skin was a dark bronze, its blue eyes bright with malice, and its hair a rusty brown.
Seeing it, Nico couldn’t help but smile but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. A tense smile, sad smile, angry smile, every type of smile was open to her except for not smiling.
It taunted her for not seeing things properly or clearly and showed her Jack undressing to reveal his unblemished muscular skin. His wound had healed! When she demanded to know who the demon was, it responded by saying that she already knew. It also remarked on the strangeness of being in this position, gesturing to both her and itself. She asked what Dr. Gruber’s real name was (thinking him also a demon and hoping to get some benefit from this dream), and the entity opened its mouth to reveal a blast of nonsensical syllables like a sharp blast of static. Finally she fell back asleep and dreamt nothing at all.
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