Witch Hunter

Finlay hoped, in an effort to be charitable to his fellow hunters, that the guy’s aim didn’t say much about his success as a hunter. Cybersecurity was interesting, to say the least. Fin didn’t consider himself much of a tech guy, but he routinely got away with quite a bit with just a will to sit down & put some effort into it. Not what he would’ve expected from this guy. The regular security seemed a lot more befitting.

“Yeah, we see a lot of those. Some tourists just aren’t careful enough around the local wildlife, most cases.” He tossed another dart, just landing outside the bullseye range. 17 points. Damnit. “Never a shortage of strange and unusual here. You know if the death was here in town?” There was too many cases to remember all of them, but it might kick some reminder loose in his head.

“I can’t really blame him for being curious. If I was in his shoes, I’d be doing the same.” Good thing he wasn’t in them, then. From what he’d seen of his client’s work clothes, he wouldn’t be able to make it to steps in those deathtraps. “Not that I have a brother to lose like that. Only child. But still, it’s leading him to some dangerous places, things he really shouldn’t be messing with.”

He presses and she can't do anything other than shrug with not a small bit of shame.

“No way am I going with the Brotherhood.” He said, almost offended at the suggestion. “There’s no solid Fellowship structure back in Bellingham, either, but it still worked out. How long ago did the leadership die? What kind of monster did it?” He didn’t want to have to ask, considering any answer but of course was going to just make the impression he has of this hunter worse, but... “Did we kill the one who did it? Or are they still out there?”

Tourist town. As much as he had his suspicions about the other man, he still didn’t want to chance saying anything too incriminating aloud before he was certain. Finlay positioned the dart in his hand and threw it at the board, hitting the outer ring of the bullseye. Good aim was important for his preference for ranged weaponry.

“Cybersecrity, before I got a new opportunity.” He threw the dart, deciding then and there that he was going to count his own darts as hitting somewhere worth ten points higher than wherever his curse had landed them, that constant lack of good luck without a full push into the bad making his throw mediocre at best.

“Took it offline. I’m bodyguarding, now. Rich family wants to keep an eye on their son who ran off to dig into some mysterious death. You get a lot of those in... tourist towns.”

Whyyyy is she even bothering, because now she's gonna have to be paying for that.

She looks up towards Asher at the last question though, expression pinching in recognition. "Fellow," she says, pulling her sleeve up enough to show the tattoo wreathed around her wrist. "I'm Cleo."

Only just regaining her breath. She points into the alley as she comes to a more conversational distance, wincing as she stands up straight. "That's a vampire that... I think it, uh got one of us. It's a whole thing. Are you new in town? It's a shit-show."

“Asher.” He said his name as if giving it was some great inconvenience. On some level, it was. He really didn’t want to be talking to someone who was going to jump into traffic at night instead of actually following through on a hunt. “Fellowship, new in town.”

They quickly fished a extra notepad out of their back pocket. This seemed like a dude that if he was unhappy would be heard about it, and while Rylan did not quite answer to anyone…she didn’t know what she would do with a Karen client. “Just sign here.” They pointed to a dotted line they had just drawn.  

With that, he stepped back, leaving the girl (... boy? The they.) in the hall as he shut the door and turned back into his apartment. 

It took a moment of focusing on reigning in his breathing before Silas could truly process the stranger who had saved him. He stood with a chin tilted into the air, pride hanging around him like a second skin."How do you know my name?" was the first coherent sentence Silas was able to string together after his literal brush with death. It wouldn't be the first time he had a fan straddle the line into stalker territory. Yet as his wits slowly came back to him, this man didn't seem like one of the typical patrons of Infamy. "Wait you know about this shit? Do you do that often, like killing the supernatural." The second question dawned on Silas as he took in the stake at the other mans belt. As he spoke Silas motioned at what was left of the women swirling around their feet. He needed to get this man away from Infamy sooner rather than later if that was the case.

"Back it up a moment. Who even are you?" Yet another question spills out of Silas lips as more about the situation clicks into the place. He had just watched this man murder someone. Was it murder if it was a vampire? She was definitely going to kill Silas so was it even really murder. "I think I need to sit down" Silas mumbled as he leaned against the wall, not caring about the small layer of grim that seemed to coat the surface.

“Asher Brooks. Seems like you’re more in need of one than they thought, that was a close one.” One that might not have gotten so close if he didn’t want to show off a bit, but that was between himself and the pile of dust that was sitting in the gutter. He placed a foot on the pile, grinding it down into the pavement with his boot like a particularly nasty bug he wanted to make sure he’d killed.

(Introduce yourself.)

The reminders that rattle through his mind aren’t him. Not his internal voice, anyway. They’re more like vestiges of the careful coaching he’d experienced for much of his early life. He set his glass on a table near one of the boards and turned to him. “I should have introduced myself. Sorry. Finlay Hall,” he said, offering his hand out. “Do you want red or green?”

It was hard to tell if this was a hunter or human. He certainly looked human, from the way he dressed, but that really didn’t mean much, considering Asher wasn’t exactly walking around in that trench coat and stakes combo he’d seen a couple of other hunters sporting. Overdramatic and showy, really, but that was the Brotherhood for you. 

This guy seemed to be on the other end of that spectrum, sweatervest and oxfords, like he was getting ready to give a lecture on something only ten people could pretend to care about. Still, he was friendly, and he was probably going to win their game with Asher’s luck curse giving him a constant handicap, so he wasn’t going to start making jabs at how he dressed before losing. “So, Fin, what do you do?”

The man was obviously blocking the door. The account back home had marked him as Fellowship…new to town Fellowship. Her past experiences with Fellowship could mean this man was hiding any sort of thing behind this door…a lot of them unpleasant.

While Rylan’s personal hunting code, and moral compass, kept them from doing hunts such as what was witnessed on the island last summer, their neutral status in the guilds also meant she couldn’t interfere with whatever this man was doing…or at least…that’s how Berit had explained it. “Dude, I don’t have to come in you can just take the box.” They held it out towards the other hunter, “I can also take it in if you want…and I can also show you where on the sheet to mark as pick up if that’s what you’d usually prefer.”

He took the box, setting it on the slightly bigger box he had sitting just inside of the door (Anything can be a table if you’re too busy to go buy one), before turning back to the delivery person. “Do I have to sign at all, or can you just leave now?” 

He waved a hand, as if he was sweeping some dust down the hall towards the stairs. 

She sees stars in the sky, which is correct, because it's night time, but she's also seein stars in this guys' face and in the glinting of the streetlights off of his car. "Vampire!" She reaches for his shoulder to shove him aside and opens fire into the alley, but it's no good, the fucking thing is fast and wood slugs, no matter how aerodynamic, only have so much effective range.

"For fucks sake." She grumbles through grinding teeth, letting her hand fall to her side. "You couldn't have pancaked the vampire, man?" Her hands go up as she tries to bed down the angry frustration of it all. Just... one win. One win in this god damned city.

She had to be brand new to this. It was situational awareness 101, look both ways. If a kindergartner could do it, so could a fucking adult. 

He reeled back as she turned on him. There was no way she was going to make this into something that was his fault. “It’s not like I have control over who jumps in front of my car like a deer! You’re the one that—” 

Where: Asher’s Apartment Building

When: Graver’s Day Out

Rylan looked back and forth between the wheelbarrow that was still laden with packages and the three flights of stairs to this guy’s apartment. The elevator was out of order and hence out of the question. But…

The package was of a nature that it needed to be one of the first deliveries, it had arrived on the island less than a week ago and Rylan had made sure it was thoroughly insulated. But because of this the wheelbarrow was too full for them to pick up and carry three flights. She looked at Argus and then at the sun which was sitting at a healthy height in the sky.

“I am going to leave you in the shade,” Rylan nodded to her eye, “here.” They knelt and pulled out a dog bowl from a compartment in the wheelbarrow and unclip the carabiner on their belt that held their water bottle. Argus deserved a water break.

Rylan than lifted the package in question and immediately was assaulted with the smell of rowan berries. She didn’t know why a hunter would be in need of so many, their best guess was something to do with witches, but…hadn’t they been debunked as a witch repellent in like…the Tudor era.

Still, he didn’t want people to see the sort of temporary mess he was living with right now, which meant he was leaning in the doorway, blocking the view as he looked the person in the hall over. No sort of supernatural that he could tell, which let him focus on the box in her hands. 

Oh, right, he’d ordered something through the hunter package system. “Is that from Gravers Isle? I thought I’d have to go there to pick it up.” 

Shiv was supposed to get work done tonight. Overlook Park was just the rendezvous point, the designated area where another Brotherhood member would come to discreetly hand over another file for [Project Fallen Leaves]. Shiv would then transport it to WashTub, edited and annotated for the next person/s to deliberate.

But plans changed. This location became compromised the second another hunter brought his chase to Overlook. A hunter Shiv does not recognize, one that is distinctly not theirs. "Shit-"

The initial plan is canceled with a single text message yet Shiv still remains. They linger a small distance away, trailing behind his pursuit. Observing, analyzing, critiquing. Clumsy. Reckless. Over compensating. The longer they watched, the more abundantly clear it was that nothing here was fair or just. The creature he is chasing has yet to actually strike and do humanity harm. This is wrong. He is actively dishonoring the hunt.

Did this guy have friends? None of his tattoos seemed to be reacting to other vampires in the area, was this some sympathetic human, or—

The man’s words answered his question for him. Another hunter, one of the sanctimonious ones who treated the hunt like it was some sacred thing. Ugh. 

“You’re the one who spoiled it, letting him get away. Let go of me!” He hissed.

On a night when he's just looking to have a drink in peace, Sweetwater's his poison of choice. Quality is the price paid for security - he'd be hard pressed to say any of the bartenders were particularly good at their job, but his drinks also didn't come with the incessant need to keep looking over his shoulder. He's not looking for someone to take home, or hoping to overhear information about the darker parts of the city's underside. He's just here.

Tonight was a glass of whiskey at a seat at the bar, on a thankfully quiet night. He was eyeing the dartboard (maybe someone was looking for a quick game) when he heard someone settle at the bar near him. He glanced over instinctively to assess the newcomer and immediately made the mistake of making eye contact. Now he had to say something, because people tended to not take it well if he tried to pretend nothing had happened.

Sweetwater was a dive, but it was a dive that didn’t have bluegrass music and line dancing, which set it a step up from the Iron Trap. He wasn’t looking to get wasted, he was just looking to spend time somewhere, and he’d pick darts over dancing anytime. It seemed like he’d made the right choice, anyways, since a man at the bar was already eyeing up the board when he sat down and ordered a drink. 

“Evening.” He answered, before nodding towards the dartboard. “Do you play? Up for a game?”