seven.

[kai]

[trigger warning: gore]
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They left the body parts underneath Republic Plaza this time.

Wind on Concrete called Warning Threshold when she found the message. Described what she saw. Six of the bodies: human. Dismembered. Heads, arms, legs removed. It wasn't so much that they were torn apart, it was how they were laid out. Each pair of legs was a line out from a central point. Each set of arms created a sort of arrow from the tips of those lines. Each head sat at the apex of the arrow. Each torso was laid out in between the leg-lines, belly torn open and small intestine unwound to connect piece to piece to piece, a grisly and stinking game of connect-the-dots. And ultimately, at the center of this putrid star, was the body of Little Raven. In crinos, of course. They'd impaled him on a stake. They'd cut open his midsection, too, cut his intestine into pieces, tied those pieces like ropes from his belly to the bellies of the dead humans around him.

"River of Clouds," Warning Threshold interrupts, mid-sentence, his voice quietly reminding Wind on Concrete of the earned name that Little Raven had been given after his rite.

"Right," Wind exhales, forcing herself not to shake as she stood in the underground parking, staring at the corpse of the metis who, in life, had been a new Cliath. He'd been so determinedly proud of himself. He had been a good Ragabash. Every time someone forgot -- or tried to insult him -- and used his cub name, his 'street' name, he just used their cub name back at them. He'd try to teach them like they were a cub, then. Now, here is how you shapeshift. We're going to work on control today. Oh, you're doing so well, Larimer-yuf! Before you know it, we'll both have our deed names!

"Right," she whispers a second time. "River of Clouds-yuf. It's him."

"And you're sure there are six humans?"

"What?" She frowns, dragging her eyes off of the last and lasting impression she will have of her friend, scowling at her phone instead. "What does that matter?"

"It matters. Count again. Are they missing any parts?" Warning Threshold, as always, sounds calm.

"They're missing all their parts, rhya," Wind says, putting her hand to her forehead.

"I mean," says the Warder, his voice leveling out, flat as a steel sheet, "parts that aren't there. Organs. Eyes. Even things as small as jewelry that's been stolen. Or toenails pulled out. Take a few minutes to look. I'll stay on the line. Cleanup is on the way with the van. Raspberry Sky is with them."

Wind takes a breath. She starts looking, while in the back of her mind the rest of her pack talks about what they found as they continue their patrol. She searches each corpse. It isn't until she thinks to roll one of the torsos to its side to look underneath it that she sees what they all would have seen right away, if it hadn't been hidden.

"Their hearts," she says suddenly, into the bluetooth. She hears the faint click of mute being turned off.

"Say that again."

"Their hearts are gone." She's scrambling up now, letting the torsos drop, jumping over a few more body parts and nearly slipping on an intestine to get behind what is left of River of Clouds. She exhales, a little too heavily, a little too shakily. "River of Cloud's is gone, too. Rhya..."

A van's headlights gleam not far away. The cleanup crew rolls to a stop not far from the site, a large group of kinfolk emerging with bags, hoses, and one voluptuous Bone Gnawer Theurge. Wind on Concrete can't stop staring at the hole in her friend's back where his enormous, crinos-sized heart used to be.

Warning Threshold has not said a word. Wind on Concrete takes a breath, staring, staring at her friend while the kinfolk get to work, while the Theurge lights a spring-budded branch on fire, releasing pungent smoke from the newly cut wood. "Rhya, if it's them again, why are there seven bodies?"

He's still silent a moment, then exhales a breath. She hears it whooshing, can almost feel its warmth and humidity. "Call your pack back to the garage. Help Raspberry Sky cleanse and then return River of Clouds to the sept. We'll bury him tonight."

Wind swallows hard. "Yes, Rhya."

The line clicks off. She reaches up and presses the button her headset. Her eyes stay on River of Clouds. All she can think of are the implications of what she's seen, and how the Warder reacted. You have to know him for a while to know that he's not always that abrupt. You have to know him for a while to realize that when a phone call breaks off like that, it's because he has to make ten other calls. Right away. Ones more important than yours.

"L'horreur bien-aimée," she whispers.


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[this takes place the night of 5/6. a metis cliath child of gaia ragabash named river of clouds, known until about six months ago by the cub name 'little raven', was found in the parking garage of republic plaza, less than half a mile from the sept of the cold crescent. a stylized sketch of the layout of the bodies is in the gallery for reference; pictures and sketches and verbal descriptions of it are probably all over the sept (and likely the caern-sept as well) by mid-day or the evening of 5/7. garou and kin alike may hear of it. up to you if you want your pc to know anything posted here or above.

email me any questions you'd like if you're interested in getting your character into this. characters who have been in the area longer may have personally known river of clouds. characters who have been in the area longer than 1 year may hear other rumors around either sept. as before: email me questions or actions! please put [sl] [seven] in the subject line of your email, exactly like that or a response may take longer. any chat scenes will be scheduled later on.

WEEOOO.]

[kai]

In the nights after River of Clouds is found and then laid to rest with his Gathering, those Garou in and around the Sept of the Cold Crescent will become aware of a few changes. Most of them are subtle, the reasoning known only to those in inner circles.

For one, Guardians patrol more heavily, and more often. Official patrol groups are advised to stay in groups of a minimum of three, preferably five or more. The Warder is having more conversations over the phone with the Warder of the true caern, and some of them seem rather heated.

As most questions are asked, simple answers are given: Just some Spirals.

And yes: even the most casual responder seems unnerved by how close the bodies were arranged relative to the sept headquarters.

[Kenna]

May 7th, 2013
Early Evening

"Jacobi."
"Hnngh?"
"You figure we're gonna get locked down again?"

Somewhere on East Colfax, two perpetually dusty men tapped cigarettes into a coffee tin and mutually enjoyed the crisp fresh to the air and the grand sight that the approaching storm brought in. They sat together at a patio table, awkwardly jammed up into the space of a broad, white and crumbling apartment building's front porch.

"What would make you expect that they wouldn't?"

The third voice belonged to a girl, in her late teens by the look of her, with long straight brown hair that hung in a curtain about her shoulders and over her chest. She was sitting on the dense wooden railing that lined the building's porch, leaned back against the wall. She was near enough not to need to raise her voice to be heard.

The older of the two men, with skin like leather and a faded blue ball cap on his head, shrugged his shoulder in the girl's direction and nodded his head.

"Girl's got a point."

The third person, an average looking man with hairy forearms and a heavy stubble on his cheeks and jaw, shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, I don't know who all's connected the dots already."
"Matt, everyone has. That's why they're spreading the word-- that's how we heard. Come on, now."
"Ahh, fuck off."

Thunder rumbled on the horizon, and although it didn't interrupt anyone, all three Bone Gnawers looked out toward the sky. The wind was picking up, and fat drops of rain were thumping on the pavement and parked cars nearby. The porch had an awning built overtop it, so there was no hurry to seek further shelter just yet.

For another five minutes they sat in companionable silence, watching the rain grow heavier and the sky grow darker all at once. Then the teenager dropped her feet and the flip-flops they wore to the porch's floor and passed behind the table. Both men got a brief one-armed hug about the shoulders in passing, and she snagged a doughnut from the box that Jacobi had brought home from work.

"You off?"
"Yeah. You know how it goes. I need to be there and be involved."

And so, with pastry between her teeth already, Marjorie the Right Hand waved to her Kin and went out into the rain. By the time she was off the entrance path and on the sidewalk she was already beginning to resemble a drowned version of the Totem that her tribe followed.

[mnemosyne]

Three unexpected and deeply unpleasant days in the Florida panhandle, which leave her imagining that they must be in some functional mythology somewhere one of the outermost rings of hell. The insularity of small-town, backwater courts. The aggression of the Sheriff and her deputies. The odd dissonance of the swampish town. Three less-than-successful days. The clerk refuses her repeated requests to move up the bail hearing. There's something off about the deputy detective, too. The way he shows his teeth, the whiteness of his knuckles in ordinary conversation. She leaves with apologies for the system, and an admonishment to the locals to look into the detective. There's no knock-and-grab, no wiggling out of this one: it is sometimes harder to defend people who are actively being framed than the guilty.

The local guy will keep her up to date. They have her assistant's direct dial, too. But if they want this to end well, they need to figure out what the hell is going on. Start with that guy, is really all she can tell them, now.

--

Éva's first note that something has happened is the office-wide e-mail sent by her colleague, reminding - no, instructing employees that they are not to work late, alone. That they are to go to the parking garage in pairs, or ask a security guard to walk with them. He is the managing partner, and wrote it himself, and sends the e-mail sent to ALL USERS with the admonishment:

This means you, not just other people.
Which makes her smile as she thumbs past it, pauses, and re-reads while waiting to be called for her turbo-prop commuter flight from Nowheresville to Atlanta, Georgia. Then the flight is called, and she slips the phone away and does not think about it for the rest of the day. And night, and day after.

--

So, it is a half-dozen days later that she calls on Circuit Runner - Jane. Texts her fallen mate's former packmate and asks her if she's interested in lunch.

They order in and eat in the Éva's office, which is not quite a corner office, but still commands a city view a half-dozen floors below the restricted access area of 1999 Broadway. Thai take-out, seated on either side of the small conference table from which files and red-wells have been cleared.

When they get round to discussing It, the discussion is oblique. Éva has no great desire to know the details and does not ask. There were humans sacrificed as well, and she inquires: as to whether they have been identified and whether the Garou of the Sept need fingerprints run down to identify the humans. She knows that Garou have own methods of gathering information. So does she, and these she offers discretely over a handful of sticky rice sweets. After lunch, they the leftovers back into the delivery bag. Jane takes them

[kai]

By midday Saturday, most garou affiliated with the Sept of the Cold Crescent in one way or another -- and many affiliated with Forgotten Questions -- know that a few Cliaths found a Spiral and handed her over to the Guardians. There are some to say she's not a Spiral, at least not yet, but there's no one suggesting she isn't tainted. No one says she isn't way out on the corner of Fucked-Up and Evil. There are even a few who have either assumed or have good reason to believe that the exceptionally tall, very thin young woman who was brought in by the Guardians last night is the one who killed River of Clouds.

And six humans. Let's not forget them.

As such, once the girl has been handed over to the Warder, there are more than a few Garou at 1999 Broadway who are demanding that she be torn limb from limb, each extremity held in their own teeth until bones and tendons give way. He was metis, and he was just an unpacked Cliath, but he was one of their own, and there are some who know he was a damn good Ragabash. She deserves to die. There are some yelling tenets of the Litany in the hallways, furious that she's being held instead of questions.

Cooler heads are prevailing. One of those cooler heads is Warning Threshold-rhya, the Warder, who has been talking with the girl all night since Champion of Honor dragged her back in. Champion of Honor is, in fact, one of the Guardians standing outside of the holding cell talking other garou down from interrupting. Reminding them that they need to know more. A lot of the information about the other garou who were involved comes from him.

So by the middle of the afternoon and into the evening, more and more wolves know that the girl fixated on someone named Rabid Jack Rabbit, a Bone Gnawer Philodox. It was Nina-called-Underdog, the Rotagar, who alerted the Guardians when they found her. When people demand to know what else this girl has done, Champion of Honor just keeps telling them that two of the Guardians went with Rabid and Underdog and a staff-bearing Child of Gaia named Still Waters to patrol the area and make sure that the would-be Spiral cub hadn't left behind any other surprises in parking garages.

It isn't until the mortal dinner hour that Champion of Honor is relieved to go rest for a couple of hours before getting up to patrol again. He's a Cliath himself, and one of the youngest Guardians of the sept, and some of the garou who were just moments ago talked down from breaking through the wall and interrupting the Warder's interrogation mutter with grudging respect that he's a damn fine Philodox.

--

No screams come from the holding cell. The Warder does not exit to rest. He calls for no help. His second in command is watching the feeds from their control room, directing patrol groups on her headset, keeping an eye on the private screen that shows her what is happening in the cell where the girl is. He hasn't needed to hurt her. She hasn't frenzied on him or tried to attack. They're just talking.

For now.

[Joey]

The gruff and unsightly little lump of muscle and biker's cut leather, Carhartt canvas welder's pants and worn jackboots, enters with the second cadre of returning Guardians. Nina, not as unfamiliar as the rest, had taken up with them after Champion of Honor had claimed the Sept's prisoner, and Jack had joined as well. His bike had been pulled up downstairs upon their arrival. Its saddlebags are draped over his left shoulder, the junk inside rattling with each step.

"Rabid Jack," if it weren't readily apparent to some that's who he is, or at least the name sewn in a black-outlined square of white on his worn leather vest (the sleeves had been unzipped and removed with the final onset of a warmer season). The tag is similar to what one might find on a bowling shirt or mechanic's coveralls.

Jack isn't surprised when eyes (and questions soon after) start falling on him even before Saturday morning comes. When a kinsman of Stag had been so inquisitive as to ask, Why was she so interested in you? Have you met her before? He had known, or at least guessed, it wouldn't be the end of it.

He wonders if the damn fine Philodox with a cleaner cut, a popped collar and khaki cargo shorts like an Abercrombie & Fitch model, had mentioned his side of the story. Or at least what he'd said of it. That she wanted a wolf-born. Said she wanted to make him into someone else she knew. A lupus with a beard.

He makes his introductions: Law in War. Rabid Jack Rabbit to the apes he loves, but wolf-born. Philodox, yes. Cliath, yes. Bone Gnawer... No shit.

"Bitch-cub wannabe bastard from Gunnison; wanted a wolf-born. Wanted my help. Said the Metis had black hair like Th'nak'vis," snarl wrapped uncomfortably around the word. "Yeah, I think she did in River of Clouds. Yeah, that or she's the honey pot. Or was, and she's just aping whatever Wyrm-rite they did to him. Said I'd need a beard to match D'stok. Lost packmates? Trying to remake them, maybe, even if it's out of spare parts. Trying to dance the spiral, maybe. Maybe."

Shares what else she'd said: First step, second step, can't go back now. Then I'll be one and I won't be alone again. And all the rest, or what he can remember of it, hoping Nina will help fill in the bits and pieces of maddening drivel he doesn't.

The bulk of fur and muscle, a stout ball of sinew, looks no more or less comfortable in the wolf form he wears once that's done with. But he's much more comfortable on the bedroll he lays out (a certain odor comes with the pad of fabric) and settles into in some corner of the residences. Rests his head on his paws and mulls on the other words she'd said:

We'll kill you one by one if we have to. Maybe they'll let me keep you for a little while. We don't want to. Just believe in us. Have a little faith.

And waits to be summoned. Or disturbed to once again introduce himself. To once again share the facts of the previous night. Or at least his side of the story.

[kai]

It's the Guardians who get to talk to Jack first, after he and the others return from patrolling the area where they found the girl. It's a more thorough Q&A session than could be had next to Pints Pub, and there's a Galliard of his tribe named Never Shuts Up -- which actually is a better story than you'd think -- who chews his nails taking notes, occasionally spitting those nails to the side. He's not doing the questioning, he's just a Cliath, but he seems to be a little obsessed with documentation. The questioner is the Guardian Circuit Runner, who was there last night.

Gunnison, Never Shuts Up writes down, tongue between his teeth, as Jack talks. Th'nak'vis - black hair. D'stok - beard.

Circuit Runner asks him, before he heads off or goes on: "How did she know your breed? Did she throw a Wolf Sign on you, or something like that?"

[Joey]

"She didn't. I don't know. Could've been a spirit? Some gift? Or... Someone told her." Jack gives options and possibilities, knowing full well the Garou before him might already be considering them.

And he trades questions for questions, not simply answer them. Turning it into a conversation. Because he seems to have a need to know. "The Warder- what did he say? What do we know about what or who killed River of Clouds? Is she the only one?"

[kai]

Don't know, writes down the other Galliard, carefully penciling in the part of Jack's answer that matters to them. An arrow is drawn from there, in #2 pencil, back up to the line that says Why??? Lupus???. Another big question mark is drawn beside the curve of the arrow. Neither Circuit Runner nor Never Shuts Up seem inclined to make any guesses.

At least neither of them says Just the facts, ma'am. But then, that would be before all of their time.

"The Warder hasn't come out of her cell since he took her in," Circuit Runner says with a shrug. "As for the rest: it's all conjecture and rumor at this point." She looks over at Never Shuts Up and gives him a nod. He flips his notebook shut and Circuit Runner looks at Jack again, rising up. "Thank you for everything you did," she tells him, meeting his eyes. "If you think of anything else, let us know."