Rowen cautiously offered Marry his arm and tossed a look toward Marcella that could almost be read as him saying 'help me'. But either way, he lead the blind woman down the stairs, being careful not to move too quickly or too slow. Finally, he reached the end of the last stair and brought Marry onto the flat floor. Rowen pulled his arm out of Marry's grasp and stepped toward the door and grabbed his coat and usual clothing off the wrack and tugging it on.
"Let's go save the little geek before he gets himself eaten, shall we?" He asked, looking toward both Marry and Marcella. It didn't seem as if he was eager but inwardly he was happy to get as far away from satan's fox as quickly as he would be allowed. Finally after tying his boots he pulled open the door for the pair and dramatically waved his hand in the direction of it,
"Lady's first," he said in almost mock politeness.


{{mahahahah short, fear it}}

Skylar began to stir, she was in incredible pain. First she was molting, which always caused discomfort, but on top of that, her hand was burnt. She winced as she moved over onto her side so she could see where she was. It looked like her room, there were feathers in neat piles, and a few medieval looking weapons, a couple of circus posters hung on the wall, and there was her photo of her family. She sighed, last thing she remembered was cooking with Marcella when Mary came running into the kitchen. The house seemed eerily quiet, something big must have come up for it to be empty and for them to forget about the food.

“THE FOOD!!” Skylar tried to leap out of bed but her wings caught on something and tripped her, the pain was terrible. Wincing she grumbled as she tried to find something to dull the pain, she was no healer, but she did keep some things in her room.

Stepping across the street, Gordon didn’t even bother to check for traffic, he could hear the grumbles and curses from the drivers, some audible others mental. He could have been blind and would have been able to live in the city perfectly fine. Voices and minds never stopped in the city, unless they were silenced the old fashioned way, and he knew a few people who were still in the silencing business. He thought he heard a few familiar minds of that sort as he strolled on past a local coffee house.

They were disgruntled about something that they didn’t want to report to their boss. He smiled perhaps he could help by giving them ideas. He stepped into the bistro, and ordered a small coffee, something he could pretend to be interested in. He eavesdropped on their thoughts again, he picked up bits about how Tony would not like to hear that Lou’s pet demon was causing trouble. Gordon’s smile widened, this was even better than he had thought it would be. He slipped ideas of sects and underground meeting halls into their minds, places where they could get their own demonic representatives. The thoughts slipped so fluidly into their minds that even their own brains recognized them as their own.

“Stepping up the pace, quickening the call of disaster. I like it here.” Gordon dumped out the remains of his coffee, it tasted like muddy water anyways. He needed to get his suit from the drycleaners before returning home.

"Oh hell, that can’t be good." Seth sneered, he was in no fit shape to handle these 'things' it seemed, and he probably knew why. The male sprinted for Melvin; luckily his body was trained just as well as his abilities and he knew to ignore the pain of his sickness if he was going tog et through this. While holstering his guns, Seth leaped up at the tree, finding several good places for his hands and feet to grip as he ran up and kicked off, tackling Melvin down and landing on both feet after rolling once with him in the air. Seth hadn't noticed that the force of his impact had thrown off Melvin's glasses and in that instant he felt perfectly fine again.
You've gotta be kidding me...! He looked behind him at the falling glasses once they landed, then hearing a sound that didn't bode too well, the sound of arrows being fired. A smirk raised on his lips as he threw Melvin under a nearby picnic table, drawing his guns again.
The world slowed to a crawl, at least in Seth's eyes, his form turning about quickly as the Rat people now came into view, thermal eyesight working perfectly, there were many rats, and the arrows were a problem too, but not to well calculated shots from his guns as he picked his targets carefully, getting arrows to bounce off one another and open a wide gaping hole that passed him harmlessly, Melvin protected by the wooden picnic table.
Seth ejected the empty magazines, quickly replacing them and once again began to pick off his targets quickly, one shot each and they'd go down heart or head, it didn't matter.
Wait, I've been like this a while, I don't feel anything coming on yet... Seth wasn't sure what was going on but so long as he wasn't hallucinating it was all the better for him, but what shocked him more was that the movement around him seemed slower than was normal, and his body felt pretty good, another pair of magazines were emptied out as he reloaded and spun around, repeating the earlier process, he wouldn't stop until they were all dead or fleeing for their pitiful lives,
This feels 'GREAT' His mind seemed to cry out in joy, he'd never felt so good! What was giving him this extraordinary boost in power...? Was it... He looked at Melvin, it couldn't possibly be could it? It didn't matter. Even his eyesight was clearer than ever, though it was just red and white images he could make out fine details, white sprays as blood flew out the bodies of his victims before turning cold and vanishing in the air, the slowly cooling bodies of his kills beginning to vanish, the rats blow his feet scramming as the ones controlling them were killed one by one, and the gunshots also frightening them away.
The final shot was made and it was done, his guns smoked, the barrels heated from use, they were spun stylishly, the time space hole vanishing as he holstered the guns, but kept his blood sight active, looking over to Melvin,
"When yer done cowering under there get your ass out here. How the hell did you get yourself in this mess, eh?"

Law blinked, gunfire, lots of it, he could hear it all the way out here and he was sure other people could too, in fact if that didn't wake up most of the surrounding area he'd be shocked,
"I don't know what's going on out there Randy, but there's some serious action happening and I can smell blood. Problem is it ain't exactly human and there’s lots of it." Law growled, a slightly dark look over coming him,
"I suggest we get out to the park sharpish and get any mess sorted out that should be sorted, the noise probably woke up the whole neighborhood and warranted a call for the cops."

Ransome had gotten the cash that he wanted to buy himself new clothes, but, after a very small pang of guilt, he decided to get his old coffee-stained jacket cleaned and pressed anyway. Maybe he could give it to Pinstripe Lou, even if the jacked lacked the man's usual ugly pinstripes. Or maybe he could give it to one of Lou's grunts, just to see how numbskulls would react. The agacella generally followed through on his rare moments of charity, out of curiousity to see if and how the gifts would be received. Apparently even in this day and age, people were still occasionally wary at accepting presents from a man with horns and hooves.

Dressed in the refreshingly expensive suit he had just purchased earlier that day, Ransome walked up to the door of the cleaners. He carried his older suit along with him, all on hangers and covered in a cheap clear plastic garment bag. With his free hand, Ransome opened up the door and ducked as he stepped through, so he would not knock his horns against the doorframe or anything.

Fortunately, he had been here before, so the agacella knew that, not only would these people do a passable job getting the coffee stain out of his old suit, but they would not stare excessively at his nonhuman features along the way. People these days seemed to be less upset by him overall, but there was still enough suspicion that he was a devil or something to be a pain in the ass. People these days also, fortunately, seemed to be more accepting of the idea that he was a holy beast of luck. Or wealth and fortune. That second one tended to work better.

"When would you like to pick this up?" the man at the counter asked as he took the suit and hung it up on the rack with the other things to be cleaned.

"Ah, you know my boss," Ransome replied, and reminded him in a slightly-hushed tone, "The sooner things get done, the happier Lou is."

"Y-y-yes, of course, sir!" the man stammered, and snatched the suit off of the rack again. "I'll have it done in an hour." And he scampered off to the back.

Ah, results.

Ransome figured he had nothing better to do for an hour, so he settled down on the low and wide inside windowsill of the cleaners, half-twisted around so he could look out at the street. To amuse himself, he settled for flicking his tail up in the view of the passers-by, to see who would notice that or his horns, and what they would do.

He hoped to stay in this city long enough that everyone would recognize him. It would take a while, but he was fairly certian that this time he could do it. It would be a fun little game.

Gordon reached the corner of the street before the drycleaners, his mind reached out and probed to make sure they were still open, you never knew with the cleaners around here. He heard frightened and agitated thoughts coming from inside along with a calm and pensive thought from just outside.

He narrowed his seeking mind onto the man who was working. Thoughts of pure fear and dislike came to Gordon, thoughts were jumbled but he managed to pick out a few phrases. Lou’s monster, money owed, fear of the man coming in again, and a coffee stain. How had he missed this “monster” earlier, usually the denizens from the other world had different thought patterns.

He moved on to the other mind that was waiting. Elegant thoughts, something he hadn’t noticed before. Gordon assumed this was a gentleman he was reading, that or someone very old. The strongest thoughts were a mix between amusement and disdain, something had recently happened that this person didn’t like, possibly the coffee stain the launder was thinking about. “Tail flick, tail flick, oh that one noticed, hehe, look at him fall over himself. If I stay here a bit longer everyone would know who I was, what a fun little game.”

Gordon pulled back slowly as if he was walking away, never knew who could feel him probing. He collected himself, and moved his hand to fix his hat. His hand met empty air and he grumbled remembering that someone had sprayed cleaning solution on it and it too was at the cleaners. Rounding the corner he noticed the man sitting in the window, a slight flick of a tail caught his eye, but he made no notice as he entered the shop. Soft bells rung as he opened the door and stepped in, the frightened man jumped at the sound and turned around. Seeing Gordon he forced a smile and approached the counter.

“Hello there Mr. Lemron, are you here to pick up your things?” he shuffled in place, fidgeting with his hands. “I’m sorry but it seems that your boulder hat isn’t quite done, it should be 20 minutes or so, if you mind waiting.”
Gordon didn’t like when things were late to him, but this gave him time to chat with the other patron in the store.

“Thank you, I’ll wait.” He moved over to the other side of the window sill and took a seat. He turned to face the other man and noticed the antler horns coming out of his head but made no notice, nothing was strange in his line of business. Melvin and his girl brought him stranger stories and pictures than this guy.

“So what was it? Coffee or lipstick?”


Skyler couldn’t find anything, she usually had backups to her backups, but somehow she was all out. She hoped that it wasn’t thieving pixies or brownies that had taken her supplies. Sighing she stood up and moved to sit back down on her bed, she didn’t know any magic that could help her either.
“Why now of all times?! I molted three months ago!” she cried out to her empty room, a few more feathers floated down to the ground.

((Asahi, if the thoughts don't convey Ransome's personality I'll change them. feel free to tell me.))

On one side of Randy stood a rather large rock, and the other a hard place. She couldn't leave the gun shots ignored, the direction was known to have some things of a magical tendency, which meant she was supposed to be looking after it. But there was Ouka, and she had been told to go take care of a too loud critter, which could be dangerous all on it's own. Less dangerous then were-critters toting guns, mind you, but, there was Ouka still...

Randy was saved when the hard place had a beeper go off on her waist went off, and let out a small sigh as she looked at it. "It seems I'm very urgently needed elsewhere, if you could wait on your assignment for me to come back?"

It was the small graces Randy was thankful for, really. "We'll try," she said simply, got a less then happy look from the were-fox, followed by a scribble on paper before the were-fox left. Randy let out a long sigh of relief when she was gone and said, "Alright kids, let's get a move on," she said to the room behind her before heading down the stairs, to where the gun shots had come from. She had, after all, gotten a request to wait on the other, which if someone tried to give her trouble for she had all intentions of hiding behind.

Henry glanced at the Harpy tearing through the cupboards, and at the emptying room, "I can make a run to the corner store for you if you're not going with the others or something, you know," he offered. He knew better then to tag along on the potentially dangerous things.

Ransome glanced sidelong at the man who had just plopped down beside him, quirking an eyebrow. Not someone he had seen before, but the guy also seemed unfazed by his appearance. Unusual, but... not necessarily a bad thing. If nothing else, it might mean he would have a conversation partner for the next couple minutes who would not be tripping over himself in amazement at the sight of a guy with horns.

Though he had to admit, he did not particularly care for the question the other guy had asked. "Coffee," the agacella replied flatly. Was his sill-mate another one of Tony's goons? "I would be making the guy who threw it at me take care of washing the suit for me, but he's probably too busy waiting for a doctor to finish reassembling his toes."

Falling silent, Ransome twisted around to look out the window again, though he kept half an eye on the other man's reflection in the window. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth after a moment, though, and then Ransome asked, "What about you? What'd you get on your hat?"

If the other guy could ask, then Ransome would, too. A weird way to start a conversation, but the agacella supposed it worked. People said you could learn a lot about a man by looking at his garbage; maybe the things he got on his clothes had something to say, too.

Ah, the Zippo. Truly an amazing display of mortal technological prowess. Ransome now owned one of his own, and he flipped it open and closed, watching the flame, as he sipped at his coffee. He did not particularly need the lighter - he had tried smoking when it was big a few hundred years ago, and had not been impressed - but then again a lot of the things Ransome had been buying lately were just novelties that were fun to have.

There was this relatively new thing in this era called "retail therapy"; Ransome had found that he rather enjoyed it. Whenever he was feeling down, he would take a bunch of money from where ever he could get it, and go buy himself something nice. A new suit, a new lighter, some expensive cologne... little things like that. And now, with his newfound position as a sort of figurehead for a gang, Ransome could get money for his therapy whenever he needed it.

He was not quite sure how he felt personally about "Pinstripe" Lou Romano, the leader of the little operation. From the first time Ransome had spoken to him, the man had not exactly struck him as the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if the guy had somehow made the pattern on his suit into an intimidating symbol, then the agacella figured he must have done something right. Still, the amount of money he could get simply by asking Lou never ceased to amaze Ransome.

The agacella swirled the dregs of his coffee around in the bottom of the paper cup, and flicked his Zippo lighter on again as he thought back on the last few weeks. How he had landed himself here and all. Lou's mafia was really not what it could have been, with pressure on all sides from a bunch of other local gangs. Ransome had gone and done them a huge favor by lying to fool them all into thinking that he was some sort of mythical hero attracted to good leaders.

Lou's bunch had eaten up his bullshit like candy. Whatever false legitimacy they gained from having Ransome around seemed to do wonders for the group's morale, though. Their ranks had grown at least a little bit in the last couple weeks, and everyone seemed to be even more enthusiastic about selling drugs and beating the snot out of other guys.

And all Ransome had to do was be there.

Definitely one of his best schemes yet. The agacella poured himself another cup of coffee to celebrate.

He was about to start sipping at the steaming beverage when he heard the sound of someone cocking the hammer of a handgun. With a slight longsuffering sigh, Ransome turned - and found himself staring at the barrel. On the other end of the weapon was a rather portly man whose face and forehead were red with anger all the way to his receding hairline.

"You're that guy of Lou's aren't you?" the man asked in that tone that said he knew the answer was yes. "What do you think you're doing here?"

Ransome felt an icy rush of fear down his spine, but did his best to keep his features smooth. He was almost one hundred percent certain that he was not going to die of old age at this point, but the agacella was not eager to find out how well eating a bullet would go over. Slowly, he closed his fingers around the lighter, to hide it from view. Just keep talking, get the guy to put away the gun....

"Getting some coffee," he replied. "The woman gave me the whole pot. Would you like any?"

The fat man's hand shook a little as he gestured with the gun. "Get up and go outside. You know this block is our space 'cause my friend Tony warned you last week. We don't need Lou's little pet demon shitting up our coffee joint."

"Alright, coming," Ransome said as calmly as he could manage while suppressing the urge to break this guy's nose for calling him a demon. He got to his feet and walked out the coffee shop's side door, followed closely by the fat man with the gun.

The other guy had apparently brought Ransome's cup of coffee with him on the way out; as soon as Ransome turned around after he got outside, the cup hit his chest just below the third button on his white dress shirt, and splashed hot coffee on the agacella's chest before landing on the ground in front of his hooves and getting a bit more brown liquid on the bottom hem of his pant leg.

And that was it. Ransome had been willing to that point to try to negotiate his way into the good graces of Tony's hitman, maybe win him over to his own side just for Lou. But if this guy was going to call him names and throw coffee, well, he needed to be taught a lesson. If there was anything left after that, then maybe he could encourage him to change his loyalties.

As the fat man leveled the gun at Ransome again, the agacella took a deep breath to gather some of his fairy magic into his lungs, then flicked open the lighter as he blew across the little flame. Fueled by the magic, the fire turned a brilliant gold, angling in the direction of the fat man and growing into a rather formidable-looking fireball.

Ransome's fairy-fire couldn't even melt ice cream. But this guy didn't know that. His features went from a slightly-puffy angry red to a rather slack sissy white as he yelled and backed away, dropping the gun in order to shield his face with both hands.

The agacella ran at him and elbowed him in his solid gut, knocking him off balance, then stomped as hard as he could manage on the man's foot with one of his hooves. The fat man would have quite a hard time walking himself home today.

"I'm no demon, I'm a creature of myth and legend sent to aid mister Pinstripe Lou and his bunch," Ransome snarled at the man, eyes wild with his anger. He flicked the lighter open again and leaned closer to the fat man, watching him squirm for a moment in terror and anticipation of another bust of flame, then added, "If Tony doesn't want me, or any of Lou's and my friends on this block, then he can send his own mythical representative down here to take me out."

"Please, alright! Don't kill me! Oh gods, it hurts!" the man blubbered. It was amazing what men turned into when you took away their weapons sometimes.

Taking deep breaths in an effort to calm himself down, Ransome continued to glare at the man as he backed off, closing his lighter and slipping it into his pocket. He leaned down to pick up the fat man's discarded gun. "So long as we have understanding, you're free to go."

"Y-yes, of course. I'll tell Tony!" The man struggled to his feet, gasping in pain as he did so.

Ransome waved dismissively to him with his free hand, then tucked the gun away in the pocket of his jacket. At least he had gotten some retribution for the ruining of his coffee break and the soiling of his shirt. Now he just had to try to remember where the dry cleaners were.

Or maybe he could just buy himself a new shirt. Or two or three. Nice expensive ones. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth at the thought. Once he was at least presentable again, and out of his stained shirt, he could go shopping. Good old retail therapy.

[Dude, thats called double posting with a mule...]