Playing for Keepers (V:tM Berlin, Nya's / Jocelyn's IC Prelude)

[Worlok]

Ch. 0.1 b - Playing for Keepers


In which the Con of Man are Sunshine, Peace and Quiet - really

The flight, long and overshadowed by one Mr Rizzo's best efforts to get a rise out of his captors though it was, hadn't been the worst part of the day. Nor had being greeted by the less-than-professional showing of the Berlin police, a bunch of wary men and women who had altogether looked like their last decent night of sleep was ancient history. Navigating the traffic jam that usually accompanied big city rush-hours had even been bearable, hardly comparing, at its worst, to what New York had at its best (although, in fact, there were a number of rough similarities, with the only other immediate difference between the core of the big B and that of the Big Apple lying in average building size).

Francesco Rizzo, or "the Nerd", as he'd been referred to by his peers in the syndicate's hierarchy for his sheer inexhaustable treasure trough of oddball trivia, was a self-made man. Relatively short and square by stature as he was, he resembled a boar both in appearance and temperament, but had shot, scammed, tortured, robbed, bombed and terrified his way up through the criminal underside of the American East with a cruelty, efficiency and style far beyond the wildest exaggerations of even the most vicious beast's behavior. A puzzling rise, perhaps, for a man who, according to one Officer Richard Morrison, had started out as a stand-up comic haunting the less favorable bars on Upper East Side after gambling away his college fund - but a cometary one nevertheless; the rumor mill would have it that he'd cut his teeth after a gig on some Don's birthday party, with the young Nerd eventually being handed a gun and a number of names "for the old man's amusement", and since then he'd lined his way up with the corpses of his enemies, the broken shells of his rivals and the nervous husks of his superiors - the ones he didn't actually like, at any rate.

To Officers Morrison and Trevino, who had been treated to a full twelve hours of his company by now, it might have seemed a vaguely surreal idea that the man that was now huddled in the backseat of the battered squad car they'd been trusted with for transportation had, up until not too long ago, directed sums with more zeroes than they could possibly save up until retirement over breakfast, coordinated murders the state over over lunch and stood to rake in interest from extortion rackets and black-market-deals reaching from Seattle to Seoul (or, more accurately, from Seattle to Seattle by way of Seoul) 'til dinnertime, becoming richer, more implacable and less assailable with every day for the better part of three decades. And yet, this man, this panicked wreck so seemingly afraid of his reflection in the windows that he'd taken to watching his navel while still masking his nervosity with an incessant string of muttered provocations that were both very infantile and remarkably ineffective - this man had been the mind and hand behind crimes of such scale and such variety that at the moment of his downfall, half the world had clamored for his (figurative) head. Old Germany, of all interested parties, had been first to claim the Nerd for the attentions of their justice system (and little wonder, seeing how roughly a third of his more illicit endeavors had taken place on German soil, played out on the backs of German citizens both upstanding and criminal, or at the very least involved some Germany-based companies). But even Rizzo's petty antagonism and the questionable pleasure of his presence in the light of all the sickening depravities he'd coldly visited upon the unfamiliar country (to say nothing of most of the rest of the world) they were driving through were not the worst part of this day.

The worst part, or at least a bad one, really, had to be weathering all that while suffering the disorientation that oftentimes would follow transatlantic flights (and that was a new experience for everyone involved, except for that same Mr Rizzo - a significant percentage of whose life had been spent fleeing from more countries than most people ever learned the names of - and arguably their pilot, though guess who had made it something of a point to call this assumption into question - thoroughly and at length), that certain air of menace a confused perception (straining to produce the necessary vigilance, no less) lent even the slightest things when under the auspices of a disturbed biorhythm; Rizzo's sorry state was understandable, the conduct of someone who, after a thirty-year-long career of featuring most prominently in the nightmares of hardened policemen and mobsters alike, simply could not and would not admit he'd been beaten while being brutally reminded of - and more importantly, devastated by - this fact with every waking second of captivity, only to take refuge in ill-tempered audacity - though even then, the aftershock of the flight, the (inexplicably self-imposed) sleep deprivation he'd been enduring since his arrest and the chafe of the handcuffs around his wrists most likely made it worse.

What was less understandable was that he, too, seemed to be sharing in the sense of being followed that had taken hold of the two other people in the car - and dreading it, where outside attention from anyone but the beleaguered local force would likely have been a good sign for him, bad news for them... He remained silent on this issue (and silent on this issue only), foolhardily steadfast in insistence on his being unafraid, his being confident in the abilities of his lawyers to get him free within the week, his being Francesco Rizzo, sweet-mother-of-****, and the goddamn guy who'd bury two goddamn cops here in goddamn Germany after planting his goddamn boots up their goddamn asses - all four goddamn pairs of 'em he goddamn owned, and one. after. the. goddamn. other., to transcribe his one true statement on the matter. But the fear, the worry that had them all in its talons, was evidently there.

To Officer Jocelyn Trevino, riding shotgun through the choked streets of Berlin, this manifested mostly in vague hunches of imminent peril, movement where none could be at the edge of her vision, figures that seemed to be glaring at them from the sidewalk, only to disappear in the crowd once one turned the neck to look properly... It felt almost as if the circumstances were aligning simply and specifically to spite her prodigious senses by turning the whole lot against her, and with both Morrison and Rizzo deeply focused on their own issues (the former on getting them to their destination in one piece, the latter on berating the former whenever something seemed to bypass his notice, Morrison bearing it all with admirable, but pretend stoicism), there wasn't much to do about this fact.

A quiet German night had long since fallen, and as the aged police car approached the rickety shame to the Holiday Inn brand that would hopefully serve as a safe haven overnight (for if there was one thing that definitely spoke quite favorably of the locals in regards to such, it would have to be the absurdly great deal of efficiency they devoted, at all times, to sorting bureaucracy, as it were - and as they had been able to determine when even the few words exchanged with the native authorities had been accompanied by incessant making of notes, the sheer volumes of text suggesting that they were all either very good at decoding subtext, or suffering from some obscure obsession-type derangement to a man), the streets had gradually become as deserted as the building looked. This didn't shake the sensation of being watched as Morrison sorted out lodging with the half-asleep quinquagenarian at the reception desk, but it proved quite reassuring in that they'd likely at least see a potential threat approach. Still though, all nerves lay blank, the tensions rose, and somehow their (quite possibly imaginary) unseen follower was still out there.




You are Jocelyn Trevino, just arriving at the provisional safehouse in the company of a jetlagging mobster who tries to pretend he has everything under control by trying to provoke police brutality and a partner who may or may not oblige him before too long, the latter case being almost less understandable by this point. You very definitely feel like you are being watched, and a certain ST has written a goddamn novel instead of a nice, streamlined post once again, but swears betterment. What do you do? :smallbiggrin:

[JonRG]

Jocelyn was never a fan of flying. Statistics be damned, at least bullets and car wrecks were fast, rather than crashing and possibly drowning in the Atlantic... or being eaten by sharks. Rizzo, naturally, immediately picked up on her anxiety. He promptly recounted every gruesome plane crash he could recall in grisly detail, even one or two that he'd caused. Fortunately, Morrison swapped seats with her and promptly returned the favor, this time with tales courtesy of his prison guard friend. When they got off the plane, everyone was looking a little green around the gills, even a few unfortunate Anglophones behind them.

In the car, Jocelyn mostly tried to ignore their prisoner. Criminals, she didn't mind. A lot of them were pretty decent people at heart. They made mistakes, they got in bad ways as a kid, whatever. Rizzo and his ilk, on the other hand... were a completely different animal. Literally. "Wish more people had laughed at his jokes. Then maybe we wouldn't be here now." Another pedestrian glared at them from the sidewalk. "Yeah, yeah. Eff you too, pal... Huh? Where'd he go?" The speedometer crept up another few KPH. Morrison was never a cautious driver. He'd dropped out of college to become a cabbie, but this... this was weird.

Relief washed over her when the car screeched to a halt. She exited, then carefully extracted Rizzo from the backseat. Not because she cared, mind you, but because accusations of police brutality would only complicate matters. Jocelyn wanted him gone. She half-listened to the check-in conversation, not able to catch more than 'polizei' at their conversational speed. Morrison slipped her a keycard. "Thanks, Rich." With that, she stood to one side of Rizzo as they got into an elevator and headed to their room.

[Worlok]

"Nothin' of it." Rich had always been a man of action more than one of words, but had, ever since their landing, been sparse with the latter even by his standards. As if his gruesome account of prison life had exhausted some vital reserve, he had resolved to squaring his shoulders and glaring for much of the way (with the exception of the rooming talk, of course, and his short, businesslike exchange with one policeman Kruse, who had eventually provided them their car keys), even when the increasingly repetitive shelling with taunts he received from the backseat had taken place. Especially then, actually - this man knew discipline, after all.

As for Rizzo, he was still not done, not by a long shot. Having had the mercy to stay silent during the check-in conversation, he already seemed rested enough to continue with the barrage, this time taking his cue out of them being in a lift and elaborating - in such a roundabout, cryptic fashion that none could have accused him of much wrongdoing at all - upon the "unfortunate accidents" which "acquaintances" of his had had to weather in tightly-confined spaces, mostly by some "perfectly avoidable, little mechanical defect" (as those in his "industry" would, Jocelyn knew, refer to the act of shooting someone with a gun, as your average trigger obviously causes no small amount of regrettable mayhem when pulled the "wrong" way - a dangerous and lamentable minor risk in using such an otherwise idiot-proof and most versatile little tool - and the actual act of pulling it could theoretically be avoided at all times...) or the malice of "certain parties" whose "shoddy engineering" he could only heartfeltly condemn ("Now, the Krauts, yeah, those guys know their goddamn engineering's what I'm telling you. 't's why I wen' all German wi' ma business inna first place, as you know...").

By the time they'd actually made it up to the fourth floor, down the line-straight, carpeted hallway and into their actual room (which was sadly uncarpeted, but boasted three separate beds at least), he had managed to recall, in like fashion, such woeful gangland incidents as the demises of individuals like Maria "the Iceman" Delgado (once hitman of the West Side Vatos, one day pried out of a rusty fridge washed ashore near Brooklyn Bridge; five bullets), Luisa "lo Spaventapasseri" Cingolani (once daughter and main heiress to a fallen Don of Rizzo's syndicate, found dead by her husband's girlfriend in the closet of her own Queens home one day; nine bullets) or Edgar "Not the Poet" Poe (once leader of the East End Psychos, found one day interred alive - but long since suffocated - in a cask of Amontillado under a flowerbed in the middle of Central Park; six bullets and a perfectly superfluous wooden stake) - all cases in which Rizzo's prominent involvement was strongly suspected, but had never been proven - and moved on to wondering aloud whether a capable gunman might long have arranged for lying in ambush on one of the rooves across the street (which he could see through the window across the room, a large and dirty one that would have compromised the value of this building as a safe-house even if that value had not lain entirely in their effective anonymity - of course; one Officer Richards was certainly not amused).

The Nerd was good at hiding his nervosity here, in the light and behind a door that looked sturdy enough (or at least that much sturdier than the walls), one had to give him that. Nevertheless, he took to intently watching aforementioned window almost immediately and eventually remained seated on a chair that allowed him to do so, not even touching the bed. As for Rich (whose then-partner Samuel Wilkinson had lost his job, several teeth and the use of one leg over some long-term aftershocks of the "Amontillado incident"), he mostly just walked in, took a deep breath, somehow restrained himself from punching Rizzo's lights clean out and asked Jocelyn: "Got this in hand for a second, Joss?", facial expression and the way he toyed with an unlit cigarette suggesting that, if at all possible, he'd now be taking five.

[JonRG]

"You got it." Jocelyn replied with a grin, then turned her attentions back to Rizzo. She'd learned to tune him out, but she needed to stay sharp now. The woman shook her head and cut in, "Ya told me that one on the plane. But ya mentioned Carlo Linetti. "Scars." Academy taught us that one was a suicide. Sleeping pill overdose. You sayin' it went different?" Rizzo seemed to want two things right now: he wanted to feel important, and he wanted to talk. If letting him do both would placate him, then so be it.

[Worlok]

Not turning his eyes off the window for one second, Rizzo ceased his ramblings, seemingly not having expected to be listened to (or interrupted): "Huh? Sca- Carlo?"

A moment of thought, blessed silence, as he collected himself - without managing to come off any less insecure about all of this afterwards, of course.

"Oh. OH! Right. Carlo. Carlton. Scarlton." A laugh, short, joyless, somehow vicious as he briefly strained against his handcuffs (a nervous tic more than anything, born of his habits of gesticulating and his long time in restraints).

"Good man, that one. Real stand-up guy. Was a goddamn tragedy when he... offed himself." For a moment, the Rizzo of old, the man who had triumphantly foiled a great many plans to nail him down (only to then mouth off to an always quote-happy press how there was no justice left in all America, as hard-working policemen had to waste their time harrassing businessmen of such integrity as he), seemed to have re-emerged; stubborn, false and ever ready to milk all things his way sent for his own sick amusement. The grin that seemed to flash across his face as he remembered the "dearly" departed, at any rate, was certainly quite wolfish for a man that so looked like a swine.

"Didn't understand it, of course. Good man, I'm telling you, and everybody liked him, too. But then you never know..." A shrug, another straining, and the collapse of his grin. "You never know who's gonna go out next, ain't that right, Officer?"

The things one noticed under circumstances such as these... it had been the first time he had directly adressed either one of his captors (by name or rank, at any rate), mostly having contented himself with vague horror stories he told noone in particular or seemingly coincidental criticisms he just threw about, certain that they would find the right ear without remotely specifying anyone out loud. Though then it could have been argued that even now, with his eyes glued to the outside world and the mumbling tone of his voice, he wasn't really speaking to her as much as despite her. Shrunken back into his chair as he remained, he convincingly played what, after all, he was: A tired forty- to fifty-something who would not admit anything (that he himself had his paws in), to the cops, to the courts, to anyone.

Until...

"No, no, you never know... Hey!" He suddenly seemed to have realised something, and while he would still not leave the window out of sight, he craned his neck as if to suggest that he might even have looked at her otherwise, speaking now with a certain urgency: "You think... you think we alone 'round here? Two of us and yer buddy Rich? As in, nobody else in the know of where we gotten off to?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn smiled at 'Officer.' Maybe Rizzo was starting to warm up a bit, in his own demented way. Granted, he'd murdered plenty of associates whom he'd regularly address with a bevvy of names and titles, but the rookie was glad to know she wasn't a complete hack at this. She steps close to the window, mindful to keep herself and her sidearm out of Rizzo's reach. "Nah, Rich's good at avoidin' tails. Though you'll have to get past Dieter at the front desk if you wanna bust outta here." She smiles slightly.

[Worlok]

"Wouldn't be so sure." The resurfacing bravado of moments ago now faltered again, Rizzo seemed smaller than before, but no less anxious to conceal his anxieties. "And I'd get past him. But what I'm wonderin' is..." Pause, something out there startling him by the looks of it, but only ever so briefly. "What I'm thinkin' is... Don't it feel like there's someone else got a hand in this?" He finally managed to tear his eyes away from the scene outside, looking straight into Jocelyn's own with an expression that had nothing of his hostile mask or macabre joviality, but revealed naught but fear; cold, naked and intense, the emotion broke through and flashed across his flabby features before disappearing behind the same old strained ineffability, as rapidly as it had bloomed and only to make way for the Scarlton grin from earlier: "Not gonna start anythin', of course... but I sure gotta wonder how come you don't wonder why I'd turn state's evidence?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn furrows her brow. "Nah, not really. Figgered that ya maybe racked up one too many enemies that'd shiv ya inside... S'there... more to it than that?" Her concern is genuine. One didn't get to be Rizzo's age without an acute danger sense. She had seen everything, but how could she know what it all meant?

[Worlok]

There was a silence that seemed to stretch on, although it could have been only seconds, the mobster giving her a look of utter helplessness through an expression of condescension. Then: "Kind of. Probably." Another strain against his cuffs that might have become a wide-armed shrug if not for them. "Thing is, what if I told ya I don't even know? What if I told ya I went to bed one night, woke up and was state's evidence? That I did not even notice you arrestin' me? You? Arrestin' me?"

This was comparably hard to believe, closing barb nonewithstanding: They had caught Rizzo with his pants down, so to speak, an anonymous call having tipped them off to this comedian's last gig as a free man, and he had seemed his same old self right up to the point where he'd been dragged off with his hands over his head (for then he had immediately started with the threats and curses he was so remarkably inept with). But then he had surrendered quickly, and he had not slept since then...

"I think someone's messin' with me's what I'm sayin'. How long've I led ya the chase I did? Few years? Few decades maybe, far as Richie goes? And what'dya have on me in all the time? Don't need an answer, cause I know: Jack! Squat!"

That last one was more or less true: Where the early days of the man's ascent through the criminal element had been overshadowed by a few understandable "new kid" blunders - his name showing up in the wrong mouths, his picture being taken by the wrong kind of good camera - he'd ultimately understood to hide his tracks quite well, with the only indicator that he was at all involved in any given case (and even then, his involvement had rarely, if ever, been proven) being the macabre "punchlines" that he liked to add to his dirty work (such as Jacky the Horned Viper, one of those psycho-for-hire types who liked to throw his victims into his very own personal snakepit, winding up inside Joanna the white python, then a crowd-magnet at the Central Park Zoo that, as it turned out, liked people just as well as they liked her).

Until, of course, there'd been that tip-off that had led the officers to the Nerd's favorite Park Slope restaurant, right in the middle of distributing some names to a number of - thankfully unarmed - associates over a nice round of chocolate cake. And now here he was, Francisco Rizzo, the Nerd and the failed comedian, watching his captor intently and (could it be?) pleadingly, even now visibly tempted to just resume gazing out of the window (or perhaps run away screaming?) instead, but not indulging his whim for the moment. "And then ya just randomly roll in on me at lunch? Names on the table and all? There's bound to be somebody plannin' somethin'. Who says there isn't somethin' in the works right now?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn blinked, then a laugh broke out. All the fatigue and stress, she couldn't help it. "Okay, Rizzo. I mighta believed you bumped Adario off by gettin' him to dive into an empty swimming pool, and I scratched my head over how you managed to make Jell-o in Dipalma's lungs, but that... Even I've got limits. I got no idea why the hell it is you do... well, basically all the stuff you do, but you don't have to B.S. me to spare your rep. You're a badass. I got it." She scratched behind her ear. Rizzo was clearly not all there. Perhaps she'd been wrong to be concerned.

Then again... it all did to seem to fit together a bit too perfectly.

[Worlok]

It might have been her laugh that did it, or outright confronting him with more of his past misgivings, but this time, Rizzo broke through the shell he had draped himself in for the better part of the past few days and roared: "I never did nothin' like - Listen: Don't. Laugh. At. Me!" No intentional bull this, then. He'd likely have expected her to laugh at one of those. But then he had previously denied his involvement with the Dipalma case on more than one occasion, and more fervently and earnestly than any of his (other) kills...

"I'm not any some badass, I'm Francisco Rizzo, and I'm tellin' ya, I'm gonna bury 'em two goddamn cops, especially if they laugh at me!" The ferocity to his expression was something to behold, his sleepless pallor giving way to frenzied purple as he spoke through clenched teeth and made to rise - but of course, his shackles once again chafed his wrists, and so reminded of his beaten state, he deflated back into his chair, once more a broken man: "Listen. Please don't laugh at me. I'm tellin' ya, there's just a hole in my mind between me passin' out and these here handcuffs. Absolutely nothing. Nix. Nada. Niente. Capiche?"

As he continued, he started kneading his hands, head sinking almost as if into prayer, or finally into the realm of dreams, with nothing but the steady motion of his knuckles there to prove he wasn't talking in his sleep: "Truth is, I'd been meanin' to... orchestrate some lay-offs from the syndicate. Those guys at my table? Niccolo, Stuart, the... 'hopefuls'?" 'Hopefuls' being, Jocelyn knew, internal parlance for those would-be hitmen who had not done own marks yet, but only recently been recruited for their showing in some gang-battle or other. "All scheduled for... job termination, for quite some time now. Fact is, I was more scared of suddenly bein' there, in a room with 'em, than I was of you." Unlikely, but not impossible. Politics in the syndicate were a fickle thing. "Not like you'd really scare me that much, anyway. But nevermind that now; I think you noticed, too - feels like we're bein' followed, right? Even with Richie-boy so good at shakin' tails? There'd be those guys in the crowd glarin' over, and then you look, and there's not a trace?"

A certain, conspirative tone snuck into his voice as it sunk to be merely a rather voluminous whisper: "You call B.S. all you damn well like, but I'm sure there's more to this." And while he could have left it at that, of course, he raised his head up once more, leveled a long and unreadable sideways glance at her who had laughed at him, and delivered one last non-sequitur: "Tell me, Officer... ever got scared by a shadow yet?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn raised her hands in a defensive gesture. "Easy... and yeah, I saw the dudes glarin' but a lotta people don't like cops. I'm used to it." She nodded. "Okay, ya got a point, and... wait, what? Shadows? Nah. Dark ain't never scared me much. Why?"

[Worlok]

"Used to it. Can't imagine why." Rizzo was Rizzo, after all. "Thing is, I'm thinkin' you're new. Not been fuzz for long. Some of the old bastards, such as yer Richie-boy 'n' me - we don't get where we got without knowin' our enemies. And in the NYC, y'see, knowin' yer enemies means knowin' things. Odd things. Kind of a difference between hell and underworld, after all." Maybe he'd lost it? Could you actually lose it from sleep deprivation? The way he himself now laughed at his pseudo-joke seemed to suggest it. "I mean, all those murders. One every minute, so one's told. 'n' the likes of me 'n' mine get time for, they're what? Three a year? Two a month? There's guys doin' time for one murder, some point in time, and some of 'em even are innocent."

As if to silently point out that that was, of course, also true for him, he put in a pause, and again it looked as if he had at long last passed out.

But then he continued, after all: "But there's still one goin' down every minute, zip-po-sed-ly. You tell me how many you folks see. No sayin' how many you ain't solvin'. So somewhere there's gotta be somethin' killin' folks. Killin' the folks not registered, killin' the ones noone knows about. Illegals. Bums. Hookers. Criminals. I'm soundin' out of it, ain't I, now?"

He did not actually wait for a reply, but rambled on, the fear no longer even barely masked as his crazed stare and shaking voice tried to outdo each other in terms of frenzied intensity: "Gotta let a guy sound crazy when he knows he's right, I guess. You hear things. People seein' people in the crowds that disappear. People seein' shadows movin' on their own, just so, out of the corner of an eye. People for whom all their game goes south, jus' like that. Comrades disappearin', shipments disappearin', people disappearin' in the crowds. Memory disappearin', with ya only wakin' up right in the middle of ya own arrest. 'n' by the enda it, ya have a broken game and a broken man who jus' up and disappears, himself."

Another meaningful silence, then: "Thing is, I think bein' scared of shadows does have a goddamn point. Maybe people in the crowds are just a really bad sign, 'n' maybe the folks who do a murder once a year make it all gruesome precisely to scare off whoever they think is after them. Thinkin' sacrifice. Make the shadows not move for another year."

"And I think that's why 'Rich' just pissed off. 'steada hittin' me like he meant to, or anythin'. I'm thinkin' maybe he didn't shake this tail because he glued it on himself. Or feck-like-I-even-know. Maybe I'm simply nuts." And then he laughed again, and once again fell silent, bothering only to glare at Jocelyn one final time and rest his head on his fists to resume staring out of the window, looking for all the world like a scared, stubborn child in the frame of a big, bad mobster.

There was no denying that Rizzo's businesses had been distinctly downward-bound for quite some time - and obviously so, for at the top of his game, he had been even more unabashedly unhinged, but outright unassailable even in misfortune or blunder for the network he'd built for himself, the connections and means at his sole command, and the men with the guns at his orders. To be caught with his pants 'round his ankles like he had been would have been... undreamt of, then. But as far as the man himself was concerned, that seemed to not even be what this was about.

[JonRG]

Jocelyn scowled. "Watch your mouth. If Rich wanted ta deliver ya to the forces of darkness, he coulda a thousand times over. Hell, he coulda dumped ya with the polizei. If whatcha say is true, I'd bet their 'safehouse' ain't all that safe."

[Worlok]

Perhaps something inside Francisco Rizzo died a little at that closing part, but at least, it died with a blast: "Heh. Guess their safehouse ain't... NO **** THEIR SAFEHOUSE AIN'T -" Whipping around in his chair with such a sudden ferocity as to belie his advanced age and turn toward her one more time, he made to rise, outright disregarding his handcuffs in an attempt to physically express his visibly despairing outrage (that naturally still failed) and immediately -

freeze in place.

Contort his visage into a mask of sheer, paralysing terror as he turned it toward the left as if drawn like a moth to the fire.

Hide it behind his cuffed hands as he just stopped short.

And fall over backwards, head meeting floor with an impressive and audible crack as his back was caught the wrong way by a certain chair - that was consequently pulverised under his weight.

It was then that Jocelyn first heard the voice, an icy cold rippling down her form as it rang out from by the door, joyless amusement its main content: "- exactly safe? It would appear that you are right, my poor fat friend. And that even though my average contemporary countryman is surely not quite as in league with the forces of darkness as your faithful guardian here might believe. Shocking, isn't it?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn's ears rang slightly. Rizzo might not have his sanity, but he had a damn set of pipes. She had just stepped back and reached towards her sidearm when Rizzo seized up and collapsed to the floor, destroying a chair that might've been older than the hotel. Cursing all the while, she pressed two fingers to his neck. "C'mon.... don't be dead, don't be dead..."

Then the voice called from the door.

Jocelyn whirled about and drew her sidearm in one smooth motion. "Identify yourself! How'd you get in here?" She leveled her pistol at the intruder's chest.

[Worlok]

Rizzo, more or less fortunately, was not dead: His pulse raced and there was only some light breathing, but the worst damage in his collapse had apparently been to furniture.

As for the new arrival - the stranger stood, unmoving and unmoved by the display (up to and including the weapon now aimed at him), leaning against the wall in attire that might have seemed old-fashioned to Officer Trevino's grandmother (and judging by the fact that its - likely once - black and white had hence dimmed to a whole range of grays and beiges, spattered by irregular, but thus all the more ominous reddish stains, it had likely seen wear since long before the old lady's day). His face was beshadowed by the broad brim of his floppy hat, far more than might have seemed reasonable given ambient lighting conditions (in fact, to such a degree that no features were visible other than an immense, disorderly beard of such blackness as to resemble a bold downward arrow painted unto the chest, all the way down to the belly), but it was from somewhere in that unlight that the voice emerged again: "Your people observe strange ideas of etiquette. I'm used to people throwing themselves to the ground when I enter a room, but believe it or not, you are not the first of your contemporary countrymen to pull a gun on me tonight."

His arms rose slowly from behind his back in the universal gesture of surrender, but given how he still sounded amused and did not even drop his silver-tipped walking cane, it likely was meant as a mockery. "You are, however, the first one to greet me by pointing one at my chest. At least your colleague had the decency to first introduce himself."

"Standing" from his dandyesque position and assuming one that might have looked less pompous had he been a soldier on parade, even with his hands still held up, he continued: "As for my means of entrance, I used the Door. A door is what this wonderful contraption here behind me is. It can be opened and closed." Beat. "But given how our dear friend Rich seemed to not comprehend when I asked him to do the former, I am less puzzled by how this might puzzle you than you might now fear. If and where your gun-based code of manners recognises fear of having missed the obvious, that is."

Somehow, this man seemed to have ignored her request for an introduction, and by the sound of things, it would have seemed that he had been too busy listening to his own voice - one of those sonorous-yet-grating ones normally found exclusively in certain, swamp-dwelling amphibians - to actually pay all that much attention to what was occuring here, himself.

Which of course did not really explain how he might have managed to open - and close - said door without anyone in the room noticing.

Nor why it seemed so oddly impossible to speak up as he talked.

"Now, unless you mind, I'd much rather you lower your weapon and let us continue this charming exchange on more... civilised terms. We do, after all, share acquaintances."

[JonRG]

The rookie's stomach churned with an array of emotions. Confusion, fear, embarrassment... but if there was one fallback on which a dyed in the wool Brooklyn Latina could fall back on, it was no-nonsense anger. Jocelyn slammed her sidearm back into its holster. "Okay, wiseass," she snapped, "Then Officer Jocelyn Trevino would like a serious answer to dat question 'cause the contraption you so astutely identified as a door has what ya call a lock, and locks only open with what ya call keys." Her eyes narrowed. This guy talked about Rich like they were pals... Could the old bastard have sold Rizzo out to someone? Impossible. He was past retirement age. Sweet pension at his command. Could this guy have hurt him? Nah, that didn't seem his style, but he could have back-up. "And I have to exhibit some skepticism that ya know dis bum here," she kicked in Rizzo's direction, "'cause if ya did, ya know exactly why I was pointin' a gun at ya." Jocelyn threw up her own hands briefly. "But we're bein' civil, so I'll ask, what brings ya here tonight? Is Rich in any kinda trouble?" She had no clue why she was talking to this guy rather than ringing the polizei, but in the moment, it was difficult to think of such things. For some reason.

[Worlok]

The wiseass had the courtesy to not interrupt, waiting in what might have been rapt silence before seeming to remember that he had been asked something: "Vernacular! How adorable!" Apparently, he was not big on giving answers straight away. Or taking things seriously, for that matter: "But you are quite right, of course. One does need keys for locks on doors such as this one behind me and I used the Door, so unless one were to assume certain, rather... unusual circumstances, it stands to reason that I must have, at some point, been provided keys. However, you would not find any of their number on my person, and there are only two likely ways to attain them, are there not?"

Having lowered his arms after the weapon was taken down, he led one hand to his chin (where it seemed to pretty much disappear between beard and hat-brim's shade) and spent a few seconds faking deep consideration in such an exaggerated manner that the next jibe could have been foreseen - even, perhaps, avoided, had it not been for that strange blockade as far as interruptions went: "I know! Perhaps someone gave them to me. But who? Perhaps our dear friend Rich, with whom I evidently talked - and who is quite alright, in the end? Maybe my poor, old friend Detlef down at the reception desk? Could I possibly have been convincing enough to attain them from either, when neither would have any reason to let me in - regardless, I might add, of whether they were friends or not? It is so greatly unwise, after all, to let strangers in."

He had taken to pacing through all of that, apparently enjoying every moment of his little game, only to ultimately raise his hand in a (still perfectly superfluous) bid for silence and proudly proclaim: "Why, yes! Of course I could! How could I not, being as I am" - and at this point he finally gave his long-overdue introduction, starting off with a twirl of the cane and a pirhouette (really, a pirhouette) before striking a pose that quite fit his tone, as all condescending amusement gave way to a solemn cheer that became more triumphant with every word until he was almost (almost) screaming - "still Don Gero vom Kaltenstein(!), Risen Black Sun of the West(!), Fifth of the Ninth by descent from Boukephos and Boniface in the line of Lasombra(!), the Grand Confounder of Ventrue(!) and obviously - most importantly - the Venerable Ductus to the CON(!) OF(!) MAN(!)?"

Seeming to bask in inaudible applause as he returned his attentions to Jocelyn, "Don Gero" had somehow maneuvered toward Rizzo's passed-out form, now standing a bit too close for comfort to both other people in the room, walking stick raised almost like a long, thin sword. "Which likely does not make a lot of sense to you, but still sounds quite impressive, right? As for the nature of my... business with our fat friend here, I fear it shares those qualities, and thus I'd have you go outside now, take the keys you will find in the lock on the other side of that door right there - most unusual, yes I know - to lock the room, pull the keys out of the lock and leave, preferably while taking Rich and the keys along and never looking back. Would you extend me this favor, or need I tell you to?" By the end, there were neither cheer nor triumph left in his speech, and it now sounded very much like a threat, ringing out coldly from the dark on his unseen visage. "Because I certainly should tell you: Right now, and just this once, you have a choice."

[JonRG]

Rich was okay. Phew. Somehow, knowing that took the edge off... if only just. Jocelyn frowned through the man's entire explanation. Don had clearly been drinking the same Kool-Aid Rizzo had. He was bombastic. He was insane. He was...

... directly next to Rizzo. When the hell had that happened? Dude was like a ghost or some chit. Don leveled the walking stick. Jocelyn gritted her teeth. She had gotten so drawn in by the professor's little song and dance that she'd forgotten her entire job was to keep Rizzo away from psychos like this. Jocelyn took a deep breath. "You've been nice, Don, but unfortunately, I gotta say no. Rizzo's a witness under the protection of the United States government, so I can't exactly take a walk while you conduct your 'business.'" She pulled a page from von Karlstein's playbook, drawing her weapon while she spoke. "Instead, I'm gonna have to ask you to step away from the scumbag and put your hands on her head. It's my job to protect him, and I'm authorized to use deadly force to that end." She desperately hoped that the guy would comply, or disappear, or whatever. An officer typically went from the academy to retirement without firing a shot. However, Jocelyn would do what was necessary.

[Worlok]

Don Gero seemed unfazed: "Again with the guns? You are authorized to use deadly force and you pull a gun? On me?" There it was again, the amusement. "How disappointing. Apparently, our efforts overseas were not quite as successful as advertised."

His shadowed face unmovingly turned toward Jocelyn and her weapon, he took exactly one step away from Rizzo, one of deliberate and smug slowness as I might add, and thus ended up very, very close to her, her senses picking up a faint, sharp and chemical smell to the stranger's form that managed to offend her even through the senses-dulling haze that had attached itself to the Americans on the way from the airport - and still not gone. "But if you must insist, I shall respect such laudable attention to one's duty. For what it's worth."

Then he actually raised his hands, but not both above his head - rather, one came to lay on his hat while the other reached up to his ear, the shadow of the brim briefly pierced, in a single spot, by the reflection of the lamp's light on what might have been, no, what must have been glasses. "Allow me, however, to impress upon you the severity of the consequences you thus... provoke. Please raise your gun to my head and shoot!"

And just like that, despite all willingness to the opposite, there was a sense of those unseen eyes piercing her own, cruelly carving into what lay behind, and had one jammed two icicles into her eyesockets, the feeling could not have been more intense. So overwhelming was the sensation that Officer Trevino almost wouldn't have realised that she was following his command, the weapon moving as if of its own will to deliver, with that dreadful bang, a bullet toward the dark blotch that hid his face -

only for a dull twing to echo throughout the room, a flicker passing through the dark on Gero's face as if a layer of the shadow had peeled off and folded upward like some bizarre sort of wedding veil as it did, and something leaden and little to fall straight toward the ground between the stranger and the cop: Her bullet, caught effortlessly out of the air and compressed to coin format between shadow(?) and brim of hat.

"Now, as I was saying - Will you leave of your own accord, or need I tell you to?"


Well... I would now have you roll some Courage, please.

[JonRG]

Jocelyn's heart thudded in her chest. "Christ on a feckin' CRUISE SHIP! How? How'd he make me do that? And- and that thing the shadows did..." Rizzo's words drifted back to her. "Ever got scared of a shadow?" Now Jocelyn could honestly say that she had. Von Karlstein might be the craziest mofo on the planet, but there was method to his madness. Some power sourced his many intricate titles. He would kill Rizzo, and Jocelyn was powerless to stop him. What could she do? Leave the scumbag to his fate? After all the suffering he'd caused, there were few in this world that more deserved a grisly demise than Francisco Rizzo. On the other hand, Rizzo held plenty of information in that porcine skull of his about other just like him. His murder would also discourage others from testifying. Prosecutors had enough trouble filling dockets.

With a defeated sigh, Jocelyn holstered her handgun. "All right, von Karlstein," she muttered, turning on her heel with a flip of her black hair. "You win. I'm leavin'." Each step felt like its own little eternity. One. Her stomach churned at what she was about to do. Two. No goin' back. Three. She sensed motion behind her.

NOW!

Adrenaline seared in her veins as Jocelyn whirled on one foot, shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor. Time slowed to a crawl. This was stupid, but Rizzo needed to survive. Even if that meant she didn't. Resolve hardened, Jocelyn sprinted directly at the madman. In all his flutter about the place, von Karlstein had positioned himself directly in front of the massive window. Arms aimed for the man's midsection, she bellowed, "And yer comin' wit' me!"

It is with great pleasure and giddiness that I ask the following question of you, dear Storyteller. What ability roll is it to tackle a 9th generation Lasombra through a door and off of a balcony? Or do I - by some small miracle - live in a world where stupidly cool yet ultimately futile actions automatically succeed? :smallbiggrin:

[Worlok]

"Vom, Miss Trevino. Vom. And Kaltenstein," vom Kaltenstein corrected, shoving his cane into his belt as if it actually was a sword (if without scabbard) and strolling toward Rizzo with the casual airs of a man out to get his mail, "but I presume the wisdom of your decision renders your lack of listeni-" Jocelyn struck. "Nevermind."

Time having slowed as it had, Officer Trevino had plenty of time, even given her still-confused senses and keen focus on her opponent, to realise three things with an astounding clarity:

That the reflections of the people and objects in the room there in the window seemed unusually sharp and yet somehow faded against the backdrop of the scene behind it, where a darkness so absolute as to momentarily make the mere idea of light seem far-fetched and depressingly ridiculous had blotted out all sight of what was outside and now seemed to be pushing against the transparent material like a caged beast testing the strength of the bars that contained it.

That Don Gero lacked any reflection whatsoever to begin with.

And that her would-be target seemed to not slow down at all; calmly rising to his full height and leaning back, as if he might stay her onslaught merely by looking unconvinced, before seeming to phase out of existence at the very last moment with a flicker of motion cut off the split second it had begun, he reappeared some six feet or so away in the very same instant Jocelyn's arms might have made contact otherwise.

"Why would you do this, foolish one? I offer you the chance to leave, to live, and you would see me defenestrated?" When this time he spoke, his voice sounded strained, and labored, as if the idea of being interrupted once he had already thought of himself as victorious had cut deeply enough to destroy the perfect calm of moments ago, but still not deeply enough to upset his mannerism. "Defenestrated, of all the blighted things?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn chuckled. No actual humor involved, just a hollow, humorless laugh, much like vom Kaltenstein's own. "Got news for ya, Professah. Ya killed me the second ya walked in dis room. Yanno how well ex-cops do in prison? Not. Very." She drew her weapon again, somewhat numb on the inside. Part of her screamed, begged to run, but the rest expected something to have gone awry. Taking a monster like Rizzo across six time zones? How could that ever have ended well? Oh well, at least the casualty list would be limited to one. Rich would be able to go home, spend time with his grandkids. He'd probably feel like garbage about what happened. Then again, not like she was dead. Not yet anyway. Jocelyn shrugged. "So I'm lookin' forward to a nice night in. That work for you, Dracula?" She smirked.

[Worlok]

"Always." For a one-word reply, it seemed to hold on awful lot of menace, not least for his evident glee at the prospect. Folding his arms before his chest, Don Gero seemed to actually look at his foe for the first time since they had made their introductions, a probing stare from eyes invisible. "It is rather refreshing to see you connect the dots at last, Officer. Although I fear old Vlad would be at least as insulted to see his name applied to me as I myself." He soundly ignored the man he had supposedly come here for when the latter began coming to with a stifled moan, choosing instead to walk toward Jocelyn in that same, offhanded manner from earlier, something unearthly lending an almost demonic grace to his step. "Nevertheless, I can assure you that prison was never my plan for you. I had hoped to convince you to leave, so that you might have seen the sights throughout this building, guessed the fate of that bloated sack there on the floor, and run. Even if, by some turn of fate, you would have escaped my esteemed colleagues, you would have been a witness. My formal challenge to the enemies I came here to bring down. The same ones, I might add, who most likely arranged for Mr Rizzos transportation to this, my dear native land, so as to claim him for much the same purpose that I had in mind for him. And not merely I, but guessing from what I heard of your exchange, even a... relation of mine or two."

He was close now, just out of arm's reach, and seeing how he might have expected another attack, him drawing his cane and raising it up between the two of them did not seem as out of place a gesture as it might have. What was strange, however, was the calm the gesture seemed to provide him, even going so far as to take off the edge that his voice had picked up previously. "I had expected you to cave before long. To see you so bold in the face of your ruin, one way or the other, however - I can't say I did. You realize that I could still simply tell you to serve my whim?"

[JonRG]

"Oh! So the whole 'leave and you get to live' thing was- well, I guess not a lie, but a... creative presentation of the truth, maybe? I'm surprised." No she wasn't. Jocelyn stared up at the ceiling. The fact vom Kaltenstein could have murdered her six ways to Sunday probably meant that he wouldn't just cold-stab her right now. You know, probably. "You're an odd duck, yanno. Everythin' you've told me'd make me think you'd wanna hurry this along, what with these enemies of yours wantin' Rizzo for themselves, yet here you are, strikin' up conversations with little ol' me. Ya got style, I'll give ya that, but that won't score ya any points. I mean, if they've got spotters on the street, least one of 'em had to see us arrive here. So how long is it before the - good guy? - vamps show up? Izzat even a thing? Prolly not." Jocelyn edged back from the raised cane. "Easy. Man, awfully twitchy for a guy with all that shadow magic. Not work all the time then, I take it? Could-" She eyed her SIG Sauer with a glimmer of hope, "the rest of dis clip actually do some good? Again, prolly not, but it'd be stupid of me not ta try." Jocelyn sucked air through her teeth. "See, that's the other thing that bugs me 'bout cha. Ya keep sayin' you can make me walk outta here, but cha seem really keen that I leave on my own. Now, that might just be how you get your jollies, but... it's makin' me start to wonder just how effective these tricks of yours really are. I mean, yeah, I shot ya, but we were comin' to that anyhow. Only thing I'da done different is go center-of-mass." She met his gaze (or so she thought), albeit briefly. Wasn't eye contact how Dracula always did his voodoo? God, why was that book so terrible? Dear Diary, Today I got super sick and wrote some letters and hey, vampire babes. "So, sorry Don, but I ain't leavin'."

[Worlok]

"Hardly that creative. I said you would have a chance, and you would have had a chance, miniscule though it would have been. I do make it a point to speak truth, you see, for there is nothing quite like it in terms of deceit. All is a question of perspective, after all. Your weapon, for example, could do good in the sense that up is not the only way that I can send your bullets, if you catch my drift. Center of mass or not. As for the... good-guy vamps - they are already all gathered within these walls, but of cause you would have expected me to consider myself and my own the least evil, right? The truth, and this once the unvarnished one, is that I head an army at war." Cane unlowered and himself unmoving, Don Gero's outward calm belied the tension in the air. "And the art of war is to dictate the terms by which combat is joined, Miss Trevino, or to decide whether it will be joined at all. My enemies will surely come, and I intend to leave them proper welcome, but once they arrive, I will be more than prepared to engage them - if, when and in whichever way I please, because it is I who defines those terms. Up to and including those of "good" and "bad", should need arise." And there it was again, that bombast from before. "The art of great Clan Lasombra, you see, is command. Command of the self and of others, of situations, of chance, and of circumstance. Which is why we are here, well in the heartland of my foes' control, having this conversation - for nothing that could be would find me unprepared." The absolute and unwavering certainty of that last part was almost more chilling than that untraceable stare of his, and only when his erstwhile quarry groaned again, a shiver indicating that Rizzo was more or less awake, but apparently still too stupified to make all that much of it, did Don Gero appear to remember him. "Other than maybe an unexpected... amusement on this, my spare time. Which reminds me - that broken one there on the floor? He was considered for... conscription, as it seems. And by what little I have gathered, he understood well to exercise control. To act ruthlessly and efficiently, and to make the decisions that had to be made. But he was not prepared. Not prepared for the ultimate challenge - to have all he had removed and yet to persevere. The fact that you stand here in front of me, and that he lies there, is proof enough of this: He was just good enough to draw my kind's attention, good enough even for that certain enemy to see fit and remove him from their, our clutches. To bring him here and maybe recruit him, too. They like doing that. Rescue the poor hunted from the evils in the night and offer him a shot at his revenge. Breeds loyalty, and if nothing else, they understand that much."

Once again, he faked deep contemplation, seeming to arrive at last at a conclusion that amused him terribly: "And you will understand that this possibility was more than reason enough for me to throw the proverbial wrench into their designs. To offer him a shot of my own, so to speak, and try if I could not make some use of him. But here we are now, and his showing is most... disappointing, after all. You, on the other hand" - Jocelyn became rather aware of him looking her up and down, if by no visible cue, and of being sized up, no, appraised by vom Kaltenstein, who now raised up his arms, cane in hand, as if to embrace her in welcome - "seem quite unfazed. So dutiful and composed. All the more likely to draw their attention once they find out, I fear. And to make it all that much more appealing, you have dedicated yourself to preserving his life... and come with your existence over to begin with, for whichever way this goes, there is no turning back for you by now. Broken already, but calm. Defeated, but still defiant. Honorable!" He spat the word, but returned to his celebrant cheer immediately thereafter: "And there is your next reason for my continued stay: Can you imagine now just why I would have entertained you for so long? Why I would indulge your attempts at opposing me? What, Jocelyn Trevino, do you say?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn swore. Rich was still down there. Hopefully, the veteran's trusty survival instincts meant that he'd bugged out after vom Kaltenstein's arrival. If not... well, no sense in dwelling on it. All she could do for her partner now was make sure that his hypothetical grisly end at least served purpose. "So..." Jocelyn began, slowly. Best not make a mistake on this, the ultimate test, after all. "Your enemies - family? somebody else - wanted Rizzo for themselves, but ya can't take just anybody, so they put 'im through his paces first. See how he held up under pressure. But he's not a young guy, so it broke him. Guy's scared of his own shadow now. But you, you ain't heard any of that, so you try ta steal him out from under their noses. Only there's nothin' left ta steal. But you're a smart guy, not gonna make a trip an' leave empty-handed. So now you're puttin' me through my paces. See if maybe I got what it takes." This would make for a fun trip to confessional. Then again... nothing in the Bible prohibited transformation into an undead monstrosity. Sadly, vom Kaltenstein probably wouldn't let her nip out to consult a priest, so Jocelyn would have to trust her own judgement. A thought cut into her existential crisis. "...So, who all owns the cops 'round here? S'been fifteen minutes since you passed Rich, five since that gunshot, and I still don't hear sirens."

[Worlok]

"Let us... go with that. Although I should point out that I am rather going to rule out that you could have what it takes until you prove otherwise, regardless of how this turns out. In an emergency, we could still always give you the old once-over, let you have the whole awakening experience and set you lose to see if you survive, in which case we would then have to assume that you're not a complete mistake and happily extend all necessary newblood education afterwards. But for the time being, I shall extend you Montano's doubt and simply find out what it takes for all that dedication to break down.

And on the matter of the local force, I'm afraid that noone I know - and I know everyone with that kind of authority around here, rest assured - is in control of them, as such. No more or less than is the case with the rest of the nation, at any rate. As such, welcome to Germany - the people here are rather not accustomed to the sound of gunfire these days, and will assume that one simple, measly bang somewhere is simply someone's car acting up. Or a roof-tile crashing down somewhere a little down the street. But that, of course, only brings us back to the matter of varnished truths: The fact that your colleague is well does not, in and of itself, mean that he ever left this building, after all. Add in the fact that noone really wants to deal with a full-on police raid at quarter-past-midnight, and you should find that our friends in blue are unlikely to make much of a showing here before too long."

[JonRG]

Awww, yer a real peach, and yeah, I get the feelin' Rich wouldn't bug out. I really hope he ain't dead. It cool with you if I check? Prolly not, but figure I'd ask." Jocelyn shrugged, not really sure where to go from here. "So, now what?" If Don doesn't react, Jocelyn will pull out her cell phone and fire off a quick 'R U OK?' text to her partner.

[Worlok]

For a long, long instant, there was no reaction whatsoever, and given how Don Gero stood there, motionless, his unseen stare outright feeling vaguely incredulous, chances were that he had not anticipated such a brief dismissal after all. Only once the cell phone had already been produced and the message long typed out and sent did the vampire speak up again, the matter-of-fact tone he employed belying the strain of barely-subdued annoyance behind his voice: "That's all? 'Now what'? I will admit: You are not reacting quite how I would have expected the likes of you to. Is this all you have to offer? Faced with a monster of ancient times that you should have been told can not even exist, its intent to destroy you utterly just because it apparently thinks it can, and the possibility of being drafted into a war that has been raging on for centuries, you give me condecension and concern for dear old Rich? Do you simply not grasp what is happening? Need I elaborate? Or are you just so wholly without any sense of self-worth that your doom can leave you cold? Why don't you struggle? I've given you plentiful opportunities to escape, or make some sort of stand. But there you are, fingering your little phone and acting like it's just another Friday on the job! I should -"

At this point somebody knocked on the door, causing him to whip around to face it - and thereby catch sight of Rizzo, who, having apparently come to in full and mistakenly figured he had been forgotten, had set about crawling ever-so-slowly toward the exit, but now froze in place, halfway there. It was then that a voice - unmistakably male, if comparably high-pitched - shouted from out on the hallway: "Oi Sunsh... I mean, High Venerable Ductus, you gonna be long in there? The old guy just received some sort of missive on the phone, and now Peace and I think it may be code. Thought you should check it out maybe?"

[JonRG]

Joccelyn suppressed her first instinct to say something pithy. It was a fair question, and maybe, at least she could get it out of her system. "You ever watch someone die slowly, Don? Not like gut wound slow, but over years? An', an' ya cry and ya scream and ya beg, and still nothin' changes. Then eventually... ya get to the point where ya wake up everyday and... ya hate that they're still alive... and yourself for thinkin' that way. Finally, ya gotta say, "He's dead. I'm just waitin' for him to stop movin'," an' get on with yer life. It's how I get through the day. So I'm sorry that I ain't givin' you and yours their due reverence. I learned pretty young that even if ya do understand why things are happenin', it don't make it any better. But that doesn't me I ain't scared or that I've given up. I was just-" Jocelyn swore at the knock. "Really hopin' you weren't gonna notice Rizzo tryin' to make his escape." Her expression darkened with anger at the voice. "...What are your boys doin' with Rich?" Panic started to set in. Rich getting Rizzo to trial is what had made this whole nightmare bearable. The idea that they were both screwed... somehow made it realer for her.

[Worlok]

"A trick..." Don Gero, now glaring down at Rizzo with what must have been no small amount of malice, proved rather unimpressed: "Yours must have been a fascinating life. Let me assure you that I have, in fact, seen my share of slow deaths, not least because I have engineered some, myself - not that you'd be surprised at that, I take it? Understandable if it has deadened you so. The benefit of immortality, however, is that you get over quite a lot of things if you address them properly, and I shall weigh the fact that you tried to deceive me like this and might even have done it against those less... promising traits of yours. QUIET!" - "YES, DUCTUS!" - "What are you doing to the old guy, actually?" - "Mostly just restraining him, as you said. Why?" - "There's been a change of plan. We'll have our ghoul, our quarry and a newblood, after all!" - "Ductus?" - "Get the wreckage cleared! I know about that missive, and I think it's not going to cause us trouble, code or not." - "If you say so... a newblood, Ductus?" - "A newblood, Quiet. One! Dismissed!"

The person outside apparently wasted no time disappearing, light steps resounding in the distance, and the Risen Black Sun of the West turned again to face Jocelyn, now apparently back in sickeningly good cheer despite the anger so palpably flaring behind the mask: "As for you, Miss Trevino - Let me make you an offer. You must understand that after this, I have all the more reason to test your integrity, and with experiences such as yours, it would be cruel of me to not attempt some minor contribution to your long-term well-being. So let us say Rizzo here and good old Rich both get your chance to live. In that you decide which one dies tonight! Keep in mind: One of them will. Because at least one of them must. And your life is over, anyway, so feel free to be as unjust or impartial as you like - this is effectively your last wish as a living thing, and we will honor it as is its due."

Rizzo, who had lain paralysed with fear up to that point, visibly perked up as his brain slowly registered what he had just heard, and while still too out of it to deliver much in the way of coherent speech, he managed to crane his neck and look up at Jocelyn with a pained whine and forced smile, as if to say: Choose me! I haven't done anything to you, and -Rich- sold us out! I really should live, don't you agree?

"Once you're done deciding, I shall show you something, and thereafter, your period of testing will, for good or bad, begin. You have... oh, ten seconds to make your choice. If you refuse, that will be it for the both of them." And with a casual, vicious rap of his cane on the mobster's knee and the second whine that this action caused, he began counting down.

[JonRG]

Rizzo... or Rich? Damn it all! It had been easy to throw away her life to protect the scumbag, but Jocelyn couldn't do that to her partner. The guy had a family, friends, a career. Could she ruin all that in the name of justice? ... No, she really couldn't. Besides, the two of them could track down Rizzo's contacts here in Germany, and the odds of Rizzo being ruled competent for trial were about nil. Rationalization settled upon, Jocelyn fixed Rizzo with a pitying look. "Sorry, Charlie."

Vom Kaltenstein had reached five. "I want Rich ta live," she stated with conviction.

[Worlok]

The chuckle of the vampire was a sound without soul or emotion, a cruel and bestial tune from a breathless throat. "And therefore poor Franky here" - Rizzo's gaze, still otherwise directed at Jocelyn with pleading and despair, managed to darken momentarily, and despite his battered state, recalling the boarish rage of old at this hated shortening of his given name as the man struggled to push himself up from the floor - "can just die? Within five seconds, you would decide his fate, simply because I tell you to choose one of two? Apparently, your vaunted honor was merely a trick, then. If I were in your position, I would fight, you see. Struggle in whichever fashion first came to mind, be it talking down the killer - or laying him low." That last word was accentuated with another resounding clash of walking cane and kneecap, causing the former to reverberate in its wielder's hand like a tuning fork and the latter to burst, the fight going out of Francisco Rizzo in one long, teary-eyed, bloodcurdling howl as he curled up and shrank together there in the dirt. Vom Kaltenstein, for his part, merely droned on, increasingly returning to his more familiar glee: "Yet even now, you play the deadened one. So very disciplined! So very cold! Loyalty to one's own is commendable, Officer, especially where it trumps duties that one does not truly care to uphold. But to simply play into the enemy's game? To bend over and take it? Pitiful. Even regrettable."

He seemed reasonably sure of this as he gave his cane a twirl, briefly letting go before catching the lower end in between thumb and index finger of his gloved left hand and - by all appearances quite effortlessly - holding it still in mid-air, with the hooklike handle now mere inches from the mobster's throat. "So let us see if you will regret it, then!" And with that, he made to bring the cane's head down on Rizzo's broken form -


Letting a man get killed in cold blood and standing idly by seems like the kind of thing that might require a Conscience roll, don't you think? Maybe Self-Control, too, come to think of it. Anyhow, if you want to interfere with what's going on, now's the chance. Any and all rolls you want to make go in the OOC, as usual.

[JonRG]

A growl rose in Jocelyn's throat, and she moved forward to intercept the blow, heedless of any possible injury to herself. "WHAT THE **** IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?" Jocelyn screamed, face slightly red. "Any time I try to fight, you're like, "Resistance is futile," an' chit so when I roll with punches, you think I'm weak? F***ing schizo! I'm startin' to think Rizzo's not the only crazy one 'round here." She finally stopped for air and continued in a quieter voice, "Sides, ya don't just club a guy to death like a caveman. Mobsters do that, and you're better than them. Make it quick if nothin' else." Jocelyn thought of her own sidearm. If that's what she'd have to do to ease his suffering...

[Worlok]

The cane paused, still suspended in mid-air without so much as a shiver, raised to come down and crush the jugular - but it paused nonetheless, and vom Kaltenstein's cheer sounded a lot more genuine this time around: "Finally some real wrath! I had been starting to think this would never turn interesting." Then he saw fit to withdraw his weapon at last, taking it in both hands again while casually stepping away from Rizzo - and thus out of Jocelyn's reach. "It galls, doesn't it? Being at the mercy of some lunatic who gets to toy with you simply because he has this or that temporary advantage? Craziness is, once again, a matter of perspective more often than not. Now, I would like to point out that I have actually shown you no small amount of courtesy in demonstrating right away just what you were dealing with. Much as I might add that it was courtesy, more than anything, that made me stay my powers earlier. My aforementioned enemies would have lied about it all, even in the face of overwhelming proof, and then simply seen to your" - and the next word came from right behind Jocelyn, being hissed down her neck as the vampire once again seemed to effectively teleport in mid-motion - "disappearance!"

Without missing a beat, he blinked out again, leaving a moment's worth of silence - in as far as Rizzo's mewling and moaning there on the floor allowed for any - before speaking up from next to the old man again: "I did what I did to prove a point: All standards and codes must fall by the wayside when things turn desperate. You were too caught up in your idea of honor - accepting what you're told and seeing it through to the end, no matter what. Accepting the circumstances and rules presented to you. Believing that the other guy is stronger, but that you can somehow convince him by playing along. Playing along with the machinations of madmen simply because they promise you half of what you would get if you fought and won is ultimately just another form of cowardice. And so I set about breaking you down. I meant to see what it would take for you to throw all restraint to the wind and do the "crazy" thing - such as challenging me, calling the madman out on his madness, defying his little game! Where I intend to take you, you can find the tools to fight and win, but it will require you to occasionally forget about honor! About duty! About conscience! Yourself! Your own! The other guy! Humanity! "Craziness"! Your chances and your likelihood of winning - sometimes you will simply have to block out everything and fight to the end despite knowing that whatever you do is not likely to change anything! Simply have to not accept defeat! Do you think you understand where I am going with all this? Why I would criticise your every turn, regardless of which one you'd take? Because if you can... honestly... say that now you do, we can finally leave this unpleasant episode behind and see to the really important parts. Which will, you are quite right of course, not involve any more battering of our poor fat friend right here. So I ask once again, Jocelyn Trevino: What do you say?"

[JonRG]

Jocelyn rubbed at her arm, which she half-expected to have been broken in the assault. Lucky Don Gero had solid trigger discipline, figuratively speaking. "Yeah, I get it. You wanted to piss me off. Get an idea of what I'd be willin' to do. See if I had any fight in me. I mean, even if I got my rules an' chit, who's to say that anyone else does? I get it." She placed a hand on her sidearm, not drawing it yet. "But ya got a hostage for Chrissakes. It's a bit unreasonable to expect me to throw caution to the wind and all."

[Worlok]

"So that is what this about. A hostage. A hostage. Of course you would be thinking about this like that!" No mockery this time around, curiously enough. Once again assuming his well-worn airs of deep thought, the vampire casually leant onto his cane, thereby forcing another scream out of Rizzo by pressing the lower end into the side of the man's pelvis. "But is it really so unreasonable? Just so we can be on the same side in this - you are aware that for as long as you survive, what can not be saved could still be avenged? That is the exact lesson here: Forget the hostage! Forget the dead! Survive and remember your enemy! But you will learn that much in a few weeks, I reckon. No helping it, given where we are. Especially not with the Combinate at the helm. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We had just decided that this man's time was up, and I would therefore have you pay attention while I show you this. A little more enthusiasm would not hurt you either, by the way."

Then, with a flurry of motion just slow enough for it to not seem utterly impossible, he swooped down, grabbed Rizzo by the neck and forced the man upright, eliciting yet more howls of anguish and pain as the mobster's shattered leg failed to support his portly form. "You must know that once I turn you, your existence will largely revolve around blood. While it is not strictly necessary for... survival in the sense of staying less-than-wholly dead, you will need to secure yourself regular intake in order to stay active. Functional. Whatever you would want to call it, really!" The arm not busy holding Rizzo secured in his shaky stance went up to the vampire's face, cane in hand, a brief gleam of something sharp briefly parting the shadows there. "Now, normally, Quiet is in charge of newblood education, but I feel a little advance lesson should be in order: Much as you will need - and in fact, want, believe me here - to drink the blood of the living, you can part with some of your own. It possesses certain, remarkable traits, even when introduced to a mortal form, the least of which is that it can be used to quicken the healing of wounds." Gero lowered his arm and twisted it around so that Jocelyn caught sight of his slowly darkening shirtsleeve, then led the latter up to Rizzo's mouth, the screaming and sobbing finding themselves harshly interrupted by the horrid gag. "It essentially provides complete regeneration, with a few sips sufficient to replace entire legs."

The gangster, addled though he was after his tribulations, did not seem to need to hear that twice (or perhaps he had decided that things could not really get much worse), bit down on the enemy's wrist and began to gulp down what flowed from there; remarkably, his look of trepidation and anxiety almost immediately gave way to one of incredulity, then reluctant enjoyment, then actual ecstasy, unnatural contorsions under the cloth of his trouser-leg indicating that the fracture actually seemed to be fixing itself. As for Don Gero himself, he showed no signs of the expenditure weakening him in any meaningful fashion until he eventually just tore his arm away and shoved Rizzo toward the door - where the man stumbled and struggled to find his balance, even going so far as to lean heavily against the door itself, but ultimately remained upright, dazed but clearly recovered beyond even his worn-out state after their landing; "That's enough! You can see what I mean - he is alive and well. But the verdict stands, and therefore... Franky!" - "... Yes?" - "You will run away from here as fast as you possibly can! You will tell whoever tries to stop you that Don Gero declared you his newblood's quarry! And you will not stop until dead or recalled by me!"

Which, disturbingly, was exactly what Rizzo proceeded to do: opening the door and charging off at a pace that should have been beyond his stubby legs while the Risen Black Sun turned again to face Jocelyn: "Which brings us back to you. Not the most impressive showing up to now, but something of a start. Congratulations, you have earned yourself a try!"

And with that, he leaped.


Dexterity + Dodge if you intend to have Jocelyn try and evade him.

[JonRG]

Jocelyn trained for years in jiu-jitsu. She had a brown belt, for Christ's sake. Don moved like... well, like a shadow. Too fast. She fell back with him, collapsed to the hardwood floor. Fueled by sheer survival instinct, Jocelyn tried to throw the old man off of her, do something to stop the little iron professor.

It... didn't look good, did it?