Apr 03 03:31:45 107 PA - Warning Ahriman...
From Chronicles
Three AM on a monday. The night's dark, overcast, an inky sky above punctuated by a series of working street lamps that mark this section of the dregs as relatively prosperous. Most are inside, well-sway from the biting cold that's coated the earth with a layer of hard frost and frozen icicles like watery daggers overhead. The first light winks out, down the street, flickering faintly, then cycling back on. Then the next, closer, as the guards outside the Knight's Hospital look up from outside the receiving bay. A soft rattle comes from no place, something continuous, something weighty. Hard wheels on frozen asphalt. A third winks out, in series, the street empty beneath it, and a knock comes at the door to Cheapo Armaments as Ahriman's form becomes visible, black against grey, like water soaking through cloth. A hand truck rests at his feet, buried in a pair of shallow wooden crates. One of them is labeled 'Caution -- Explosive.'
The curtains for the window beside the door shift ever so slightly before there is a rattle behind the doors of unlocking locks. Moments later Schmee, a low life gang middleman, opens the door. "Creepy or not, you always deliver. The others can say their rumors about you.. Come in, come in." He invites, ushering Ahriman in in a hurry.
"And you always pay," Ahriman agrees, dropping his chin to stare down at the little human. "Business is so much more interesting when it is ... reliable." The silhouette drops the rear end of the hand truck like it weighed nothing, turning to walk over the threshold backwards and ease the wheels over that creaky bit of wood. Hard to believe his cargo weighs as much as he does! "I start a lot of those rumors," Ahriman speaks dismissively as he finds himself inside. "You know the rules. Keep the yellow-marked crate between negative forty and positive sixty degrees celsius. It's unlikely that a fire would prematurely detonate these but..." Ahriman slowly blinks his silvered eyes, staring at Schmee. "you get what you pay for."
Schmee smiles and nods, rubbing his hands in anticipation of what the crate will eventually net him as he moves over to the kitchen. As usual it is small an inordinately disorganized, a real pigsty. "Don't think these ones where of late. Some people want to talk to you I think. You made the shortlist for likely people to inadvertently dispose of Trace, or Tracey, young nobody girl to most of us, but sister to someone with pull. She went missing almost two months ago. Here there's a hefty reward for the factual identity of the one who delivered her to her end." Schmee explains as he digs a plastic bag from his half crystallized sugar stash. "And your payment as promised."
Ahriman casually sticks a polished shoe into a pile of stinking clothing piled on Schmee's living room floor, pushing it aside with a practiced motion before tipping forwards the hand truck to settle the crates casually in its place. Ahriman's nose wrinkles at the white stains he draws back on his pant leg, and he shakes his shoe experimentally as he rumbles, "Oh, who can say? You humans look so very much alike, and everyone is someone's sister. Have your 'people' ask Sinclair, he keeps the books on such things." Schmee might as well have asked him why Ahriman's check book didn't quite balance. The black being's mouth parts, a low whispering sound emitting from his lips, and with a tingle of magic the white crusty stains drop from Ahriman's pant leg to drift flakily to the floor. His eyes rise then, and Ahriman reaches to take the payment from Schmee with an unblinking stare. He's still then, and it's hard to say if he's eyeing the credit stick or the middleman. Much like the Mona Lisa, his pupil-less eyes seem to follow you everywhere. Finally he draws a small device from inside his shirt pocket to press against the end of the stick, confirming the payment amount before pocketing it. "A pleasure as always, Schmee," the black being rumbles, offering a vaguely hideous grin of perfect white teeth. He's friendly, pretty, and the saying was right, yet the pieces fit together disjointedly. The gesture seems as alien coming from Ahriman as the rest of him.
