The Rodenberry Building, The Mount, Ex-Los Angeles, Tuesday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was pacing again. She couldn't help it. She knew it was frustrating Max to no end, but she was finding it real hard to work up a single fuck about that. She was trapped here, in her worst nightmare come to fucking life, and it was all his fault. If he couldn't handle a little pacing, that was on him.

Okay, it was also bugging Nick, too. She could see the little twitch around his eye with every step of her shoes on the tile--especially since she was making sure to clack them firmly as part of her 'Fuck You Max Hale' plan. She felt a little bad about Nick's annoyance, but hey, it wasn't like she asked him to hover. After news had spread about Tori's death earlier in the evening, he hadn't let her alone. He'd appointed himself her guardian angel, so he was just going to have to deal with a little pacing.

Or a lot of pacing.

The clacking of her shoes was a lot better than the clacking of the teeth outside. Now there was a noise that could drive someone mad. Kathy knew; she could hear the chattering of teeth all night long. Earplugs and loud music didn't help; that just meant that if anything happened, she wouldn't be able to hear it. If Legion were smart, he'd send out just a few exes late at night with ladders to climb over. Not a lot, not a loud invasion, but a few. Just enough to sneak past sleepy guards. Just enough to bite and raise an army inside here. Kathy wasn't going to give him the chance to get smart and sneak up on her, oh no. Even if it meant not sleeping at night because of the constant clack clack clacking by her chamber wall.

Clack clack clack. Fifteen steps from one wall of this room to the other. Clack clack clack Fifteen steps back. Clack clack clack. Fifteen steps to the far wall again.

Kathy was aware she might be going a little crazy. That was fine, so long as she took people with her.

Max	"Enough already!" Max snapped on her sixteenth trek across the floor. "The fuck, get a goddamn hobby or something, wouldja?" He was trying to do some research so they didn't, you know, all die, and she was trying to tapdance across the floor.
Nick	"Yell at her again and see what happens," Nick snarled. "She's had a long, goddamn day. Or did you not hear about the girl that decided to make friends with the exes right in front of her?"
Max	Max just rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake, man, give it up," he said. "Stop trying to make fetch happen, okay? It used to be funny and now it's just sad."
Nick	"The fuck are you trying to say to me?" Nick growled.
Max	"Not trying to say anything," Max replied. "I'm out and out saying it. Don't be the sad man in a wheelchair, looking for a pity--"
Kathy	CLACK. Kathy had neither the time nor the patience to listen to their bickering. "I want to go home," she announced.
Max	"Kathy, sweetheart, I want the back molar and all the inches I'm missing - not just the height - from my original body, but that doesn't mean a hot damn here," Max told her. "You're stuck here, same as the rest of us."
Kathy	"And there's really nothing you can do?" she demanded. "No way to reverse this spell, no freaky light show-slash-teleportation magic that you can use to send me home. You're the asshole that summoned me here, there's gotta be a way to fix it!"
Max	"Believe me, at this point, if I could, I'd send you home just to get you to shut up," Max snapped. "But no. Translocation costs a lot of power and I just don't have that much. If resurrection didn't produce a ton of power on its own, the original spell never would have had a chance in hell of working." He shrugged, turning back to his book. "Maybe you'll get lucky and whatever wormhole brought your friends here last time will strike again."
Kathy	Kathy wanted to scream. To scream and slap that smug expression off of Max's face. She knew that at least part of her emotional instability came from watching watching Tori get devoured out beyond the wall only a few hours ago, but that understanding only made things worse. She shouldn't have had to see that. She shouldn't have been here to see that. And she sure as hell shouldn't have had to deal with several people asking her to lead them in prayer for Tori's safe return, like she was some kind of ex Messiah or something. "No such luck there," she said through clenched teeth. "My friends don't know I'm here. It's not like you left a calling card when you kidnapped me."
Nick	"You haven't called them?" Nick asked. "I know normal cell service is down, but I didn't think that affected Fandom phones."
Kathy	Kathy had the grace to look chagrined. "I don't have my phone on me," she admitted. "I was on my way to get it when..." She trailed off, hoping her hand gestures could convey was kidnapped by an aggressive beam of light.
Max	"So just borrow Nick's," Max said. "You know he'll give it to you if only you'd ask." Beat. "The phone, I mean. Obviously."
Nick	Nick glowered, fists clenching, but didn't rise to Max's obvious verbal taunting. "I'd let you borrow it no problem," he said, "but I never brought it to the Mount. It's in my old apartment. Didn't think I'd need it, you know?"
Kathy	Kathy groaned. To have it be so near and yet so far...Nick's old apartment might as well have been on the moon for all they could get to it. She started pacing again. Noisily. "Looks like you're stuck with this," she informed Max, "At least until Cairax gets bored and fucks off and I can go get Nick's phone."
Max	Max looked pained. "Just what I needed, another reason to want him to go away," he said, rubbing his temples. "The best part is, I know of a spell that could shield you from him for a little while, it's just impossible to cast."
Kathy	Kathy launched herself over to him, grabbing him by the lapels of his suit jacket and shaking him. "Why the fuck am I only hearing about this now?!" she shrieked.
Max	Max tried to bat her away, but the girl was tenacious. "Get off, get off!" he hollered. "I just told you it was fucking impossible! God, you'd have to have been close to a demon for it to even have any hope of working!"
Kathy	Kathy did let go of his, but only to lapels, but only to grab onto his shoulders. "Talk," she said. "Why? Like I said, it's--" "Talk."
Max	"Huffy, huffy jeeze," Max said, straightening his shirtfront. "Okay, so. There is sort of a cloaking spell I can cast. More of a camouflage, really. If someone has been close to another demon relatively recently, I can highlight that demonic aura to mask the human's. It's like hiding behind something bigger and meaner than you are to make sure something else doesn't notice you. But, like I said, a key aspect is, y'know, having been near a different demon."
Kathy	Kathy kept staring at him. "How long would it take for you to cast this spell?" she asked.
Max	"Why does it matter?" Max teased. "You been hanging around with demons recently, Kathy?"
Kathy	"Yes."
Max	Max stared at her in disbelief. "You're joking." Her expression suggested she was not. "It's got to be recent," he tried. "No more than a few weeks ago." Her expression didn't change. "And you have to be--close. Really close. Dammit, Kathy, I'm trying to be polite here. What I'm saying is that intimate contact--"
Kathy	Kathy's lip curled. "I know what you're saying. And I'm telling you, I qualify."
Nick	Max burst into incredulous laughter while Nick just sputtered. "Kathy!" he yelped. And had no idea what to say next.
Kathy	Considering he didn't have a right to say anything, staying quiet was probably the right call. "So are we gonna do this or what?" she asked.
Max	"Look, I get you're impatient," he said, his laughter fading. "But you gotta be straight with me. If I send you out there without you having, like, banged a demon in the last month or whatever, there's not gonna be enough left of you to put in a body bag."
Kathy	Kathy returned his stare, unblinking. "Are you gonna make this spell or not?" she asked. "I got a phone call to make."
Max	"You're kinkier than I thought, Banzai," Max said, easing back a little. "If you're serious--then yeah. I'll cast it. I owe you one, after all."
Nick	"I'm going, too."
Max	Both Max and Kathy started, but Max was the first one to find his tongue again. "Uhhh, Nicky-boy, don't look now, but you're not my first choice for a fast retrieval mission."
Nick	"It's my phone and my apartment," Nick pointed out. "I know where it is and I can get in and get out the fastest. And as for my chair..." He patted a wheel then looked up at them again. "I'm only paralyzed when I'm Nick. Get me up a few tiers and my legs work just fine."
Kathy	"And when you drop back down past those tiers?" Kathy asked, skeptical. She'd heroed with him the most out of anyone in LA. She knew how his powers worked. "You'd be a sitting duck out on a rooftop somewhere."
Nick	"Not if you're with me," Nick pointed out. "I'll need you for that demon camouflage anyway. But when I'm at a high enough tier, I'm faster than you, remember? I can get us there and back in a shorter amount of time than you can."
Kathy	Kathy was annoyed, but couldn't fault his logic. "Would the demon-camo cover us both?" she asked Max.
Max	Max frowned, but nodded. "It'll cut down on the efficacy," he admitted, "but it'll still cover the two of you."
Kathy	Kathy still felt like balking, but the important thing was getting her hands on that phone and getting it back here where it could be charged and then used. "All right," she said. "Fine by me."
Max	Max grinned and clapped his hands. "All right kids," he said cheerfully, "let's do this. One ET Phone Home Special coming right up!"

Later, Kathy would only remember the rest of the night in snapshots. Nick would catch her eyes and she'd stare back, helpless and unmoving, until he broke eye contact again. And then she would pass out immediately into a dark and dreamless sleep. She woke up several times as they sped across the rooftops of LA, Nick thrilled to be Gorgon once more, up however many tiers he could get from her. She was like cocaine, he told her once; a hit from her was the best and purest high he could imagine, shooting him up so many tiers it was hard to keep count. She put the 'speed' in 'speedball,' apparently. He needed three more hits from her to cross the distance between the Mount and his old apartment and she crashed out after each one. She didn't wake up from the fourth time he drained her until they were in his apartment, waking up in his dusty bed to the sound of him crashing to the floor, his legs giving out at the same time as the energy from his last hit wore away. She must have caught his eyes again, because the next thing she knew, the sky was lightening to the east and they were running again, his dead cellphone tucked away in the harness with her, both strapped tightly to his back.

But the run home wasn't as fun and carefree as the trip there. At some point, Max's spell must have run out because they weren't just running, they were fleeing, being chased by exes that were ringed with blue flame, mouths open wide to show rows of shark-like teeth and claws made only to rend and tear. And Nick was slowing, dropping from tier to tier and Cairax's exes gained ground. One time, one of them got close enough that she could feel the heat of the fire on her cheek, smell the scent of rot that rose from it before it missed a jump and plummeted between buildings. "Last time, baby," Nick said, turning around to drain her one more time. And as the world floated away again, Kathy realized she was glad that she was going under again, that if Nick slipped or tripped or just didn't go fast enough, she'd be unconscious when Cairax got his talons on them.

She woke in the Mount, curled up on the box spring in her apartment - her first night in the Mount, she'd put the mattress on the floor in front of the door as an easy barricade - Nick's phone plugged into a charger and attached to the wall. Bleary-eyed but smiling for the first time since she'd gotten to Los Angeles, Kathy opened up Nick's contacts to see who on the island she could call.

[NFI, NFB, all the love to OOC. Previous Post. Next Posts here and here.]