2019-09-18 - An Invoice Of Smoke And Ash

It's afternoon, Lilith has been insisting on working, at least from the office since late morning, letting Katy handle the front of the shop. She's still sore, but out of the hospital and looking uncannily alive, despite residual stiffness and pain to let her know her body still hates her from the accelerated healing it's done over the past twenty-four hours or so. While working, she texts Corey while he's in work or at class to let her know she's home and everything is fine enough to the point where she's spending some time in the back on the couch with her laptop to catch up with some things. Anyway, the pain isn't anything a little percocet and a few hits of weed while hanging out of the back door can't manage.

At least, that's the idea. She looks a little cranky while seated there looking at numbers on the laptop screen and generally distracted or a little anxious. She's not just pulled up work, see, she has an email from Isabella detailing certain matters and what's to come on a nervewrecking level when it comes to certain other issues of murder, possession, and mayhem for group management via exorcism and funeral. So... she has an utter bother-face when she gets a visitor through the open office door.

She's at least dressed comfortable, though, since she's in the back of the shop today and not out on the floor, though since she still has to step out to authorize certain appraisals and loans, she can't quite come down and work in her jammies. The brunette is wearing a pair of fitted yoga pants with some slide on toe-wrap sandals nearby her bare, red painted feet. She's paired it with a white layer tanktop with a few decorative silver buttons and lace edging. Around herself, she's paired a little black zipper hoodie embroidered with some ivy and white flower patterning as accent, hair loosely gathered at the nape of her neck with no real cosmetics except for balming gloss.

Cue Corey, wandering into the shop and through to the office with a cheerful smile and finger-wiggle-wave to Katy as he skirts around the counter. He's in smart black jeans and a red t-shirt with 'omg Becky, look at her Bundt' with a large bundt cake in the centre of the words. His backpack is of course slung over one shoulder, full of stuff he needs for class later, and possibly a thermos of his supposedly magic soup.

"Hey babe," he greets Lilith with one of his usual lazy smiles, meandering over to where she is at her desk and taking a proper look at her. "Looking better. If I hadn't seen you myself on Monday, I wouldn't believe you'd been hurt so badly just a couple days ago," he observes, shifting his bag forward and drawing out a large thermos, setting it on her desk, along with a plastic bowl and a spoon. "Late lunch."

"Hey you." Lilith at least clears her expression when Corey wanders in, hearing Katy talk to him through the shop with a vague lift of her brows to turn head and watch him come in. She closes out the email and returns to work spreadsheet before leaning some to look at what he's brought after a moment of ribbing and looking him over, "First things first, that shirt is ridiculous and the person who made it should be punched. Also you should be pinched staunchly for wearing it." Her eyes flit to the doorway before she takes to teasing, "Second thing, I think Katy has a case of the 'charmed' because she never really says 'hello' to much of anyone beyond a noise or gets chatty. Good on you."

She's got the back door open from her step out with a joint earlier and the wind breezes in pleasantly as the woman reaches for the thermos to screw it open carefully for a smell of what's inside. Then she wonders of Corey with a squint, "Is this the magic soup? I mean, not that I haven't already had some level of witchcraft done on my body at this point, but I'll definitely take more voodoo in whatever regard if it means I get to eat it. I can't sleep or eat enough now that my body is trying to compensate for the quick mend it's done."

"This? It's an awesome t-shirt. I mean, everyone knows her bundt is huge. It looks like one of those rap guys' cakes," Corey replies entirely unashamedly, his smile brightening to a grin, suggesting he's pleased that Lilith gets the reference. Though, he would've been only about maybe five or six years old when the song came out. Some things are eternal. "Yeah? Maybe I should bake her a cake," he then suggests, though there's a teasing note to his voice as he suggests it. Surely he wouldn't hit on Lilith's shop girl? Surely?

"Yeah, this is the magic soup. Ginger and garlic for digestion and anti-inflamatory stuff, turmeric supposedly for circulation but honestly just because it tastes good, easily digestible protein from the chicken, easily digestible carbs from the couscous." Clearly, Corey is serious about his soup. Opening the thermos, he pours out half a bowl full for Lilith before sealing it back up, then passing her a plastic spoon. "Eat, babe. Get more better-er."

Lilith just makes a groan of noise at Corey with the shirt defense of cleverness and sits back to let him pour while shrugging at the cake bit, "She might smile and flutter her eyelashes or giggle or... something and that'd be creepy. Or funny. I'm not sure which, I think I just hired her because I find it convenient to have an apathetic asshole that doesn't bother asking questions and is more occupied by her phone and paycheck than the job. Which is pretty shitty criteria for an employee that gives me more work than help sometimes, but... things aren't exactly run of the mill around here and the last thing I need is someone nosy that pays attention."

Her head tilts a little as she watches him set the soup up, automatically reaching to take the spoon as it's foisted off her way with instruction. Then she's on it to eat, blowing on some of it before actually spooning it in to tell Corey after a semi-stiff lean and beat of thought, "Okay, so. Basically all you really need to say is that it's amazing to convince me, because it is. Holy hell, my body loves you and this soup right now, I think I can feel nutrients or something rushing through me. And I swear I'm not being dramatic. The body... speeds up when it... y'know what, nevermind." She takes another bite of soup and decides it's not time for a lesson on how psychic healing tends to work on the body because she's eating now.

Between spoonfuls, she suggests, "You shouldn't spoil me so much, I'm going to start getting used to it. I'll get soft and lose my edgy edges."

One shoulder is lifted in a lazy shrug when Lilith lists all the reasons he shouldn't flirt with Katy, and Corey flops down on the couch when his favourite demoness starts eating the magic soup. Honestly, he could have put anything in there, but it does taste pretty damn good. "I love your body too, babe. And you're right; technically, you should be spoiling me. Some sugar-mama you are," he notes, not sounding in the least bit put out, dragging his bag onto his lap and pulling out a bottle of water to sip from.

"So super-food aside, how are you so quickly back to work, Lils?" This might not have been intended as a teachable moment, but Corey is curious. "Did your friend - Byron? - find someone who could fix people?"

"You got a flower worth-- okay, I didn't buy that, actually, but it's the thought that--" Lilith starts to make a bit of a grinning point to Corey and takes a few more quick bites of soup before settling back, as if she's going to explain with a tiny nod of her head at the Byron being efficient bit.

Then the banging starts from upstairs and she gets... confused. Her lashes bat a few times and automatically, she pops a drawer open to pull a gun from the inside like she's a crime lord or agent, suddenly, clicking off the safety before she stops and bats her lashes a few more times with a look at Corey. Then she puts it back and says, "... that has to be the window I left open knocking something around or letting another damn raccoon in, because... I can see the stairs from in here and it's just been..."

Slipping the door closed, she rises up to a stand with a wary look at the ceiling, then the staircase adjacent around the corner from the office door, "Shit. Hang on, let me go look." Because yes, that's exactly what men do, they sit and let the tough woman go suss random knocking and banging from a mystery source out. Granted, she doesn't seem real inclined to go look alone, especially if it really is a raccoon.

Considering, Corey allows, "Okay, fair. Mellow Yellow was a pretty bomb gift. And decidedly better than a few stupid rocks or whatever it is girls get from sugar daddies." Sure, a saffron crocus beats out diamonds and stuff, in his world anyway. Then, there is banging. "Uh.. you keeping bodies up there, babe? Because that sounds a lot harder than a raccoon could knock." Except for Rocket, but that seems.. unlikely.

Nevertheless, he doesn't rise from the couch just yet, seeing how Lilith now has a gun, and he doesn't particularly want it aimed at him. He does however reach a hand into his bag, unrolling his chef's kit and pulling out.. a large, moderately heavy wooden rolling pin. Just in case. "Lemme know if you want me to go up there."

Honestly, Lilith feels a little silly about pulling out a gun with reflex for two different reasons that start to overlap once she's standing and she leaves it closed up in the drawer. For one, this is Gray Harbor, she IS a fucking firearm, but then again, sometimes you don't want to pull that out... for two, something seems... wrong to her while she pauses on the way to the staircase to listen to the actual shift of the noise with draw up short. Then suddenly she blanches and looks at Corey with something like horrified... guilt? Sympathy? Something has her shot through to the core, despite her confusion and the sudden shuddering of the very building frame. She looks much less inclined to run up those stairs to look for a raccoon.

Nevertheless, she swallows down thickly and murmurs to Corey, "Stand up and remember everything fucked up I've ever, ever told you. Then be ready to accept it." Then her lashes drop down over her eyes and she shakes her head to murmur, "No." She doesn't want to... what's she responding to? She hears voices and they sound horrible and jumbled and numerous and pleading and... not right. Not right. Eventually, she edges for the stairs around the corner after another look at the ceiling, as if she's unsure where something is about to bust from, entirely, and is scared to run right into it.

But she knows one thing. Whatever it is, there's no running out of the back door from this.

Trained behaviour has a hold of Corey's reactions. She told him to hang on and let her go check it out. He's a modern man, he doesn't seem to feel the need to be macho, to push the little lady back so he can deal with whatever it is like some caveman. Lilith knows a lot more about strange happenings than he does, and so he remains on the couch until she looks back at him with that horrified expression, lacking all colour and appearing much more worried than she did moments ago.

Then as she tells him to stand up and be ready, to accept what little she's given him in the way of explanations, he slowly moves closer, taking up her six, his rolling pin a comedic element in what could be a very, very unfunny situation.

"I... you're not... this isn't... you're not even alive!" Lilith flashes with sudden reflex heat shimmer around herself, but it wanes almost the instant it starts because of the space and Corey right nearby. Some innate caution kicks in once she's backpedaled right into the desk away from the staircase and those horrible tumbling parts and the reaching hands of the others that aren't down in pieces and progressing for her. It's pretty pointless to yell at these things, more than likely, but it doesn't stop her from spitting that out with general haste and fear and panic response.

Her arm automatically goes out as she bumps into the desk, trying to herd Corey away from the encroaching mass and forms (people?), then she downright ass spins herself to the other side of the desk with fling of legs after running into the surface and catching herself to stand on the other side, near the door, shaking and backpedaling a little more. Then she gets wary and looks behind herself, like more are going to pile in from behind. Doors aren't always good things in moments like this, she knows that in the middle of trying to figure out what the fuck to do without lighting them both up with explosion or igniting other things.

"Don't let them touch you. They might try to tear you apart and they're not... I can't..." Her jaw sets suddenly, and with panic waves rolling through her, she feels like... she knows what they want. And it's so impossible. So impossible. These aren't things, these aren't people, they're somewhere inbetween for her, which leaves her at a calculating loss for a moment while eyeing the back door to make sure nothing else is trying to come in. Then she thinks real hard what to do to protect Corey, or at least bid him to protect himself because she knows people like him-- "Protect yourself. Focus. Don't. Let. Them. Touch. You."

Sure, let's hold a conversation with the freaky emaciated flaking people with the horrible voices and the demand that makes no sense. Though to be fair even if it did, Corey is unlikely to respond to it. He's frozen in place, eyes wide, the death-grip on his rolling pin turning his knuckles white.

Still unmoving as Lilith backs the fuck away from those things, it seems for a moment like her words won't penetrate his horror, the chef //still/ stock still and rigid with fear, until the order finally sinks in and he slowly lifts the makeshift club into a defensive position, suggesting he's at least had some training in how to defend himself, crouching slightly. Though, notably, not moving out from behind his sugar-mama.

The woman slams the door. It may not be the smartest thing to do, or maybe it's the smartest thing of all to avoid that void out there and face what's right in front of them. But whatever that result is, that's what happens before she turns to square off and hiss at the continued cacaphony of pleading in creepy unison to suit the creepy forms.

Now. Lilith could rationally just try to put those horrible things back together, it's what they want, isn't it? But it's not that simple and through her waves of panic, after a glance at Corey frozen, she's not only feeling inadequate, but rage somewhere behind that. Why should she still feel inadequate? She's performed damned miracles a few times at this point on broken bodies. But there were tricks and caveats involved and a lot of internal hoops to jump with a couple of those parties, and more importantly, they were PEOPLE. These are not people, it's clear as the flesh falls away to reveal the orange glow.

"I can't!" Then like a warning shot, mostly because she doesn't quite want to see what happens if she starts blowing up all of them (and because something about the glow beneath the skin disturbs her), she picks the most pitiful, broken form of the heap and sets her teeth on edge while trying to ignite it with precision heat on the dry flesh instead of a full explosion. She seems a little wary, in fact, that it might not actually ignite with gut feeling. Her hand reaches blindly to reach for Corey's shirt to try and keep him steady with touch of something alive and maybe... warning that things might be about to go badly.

Did Corey see the void outside the door? Maybe out of the corner of one eye, but he's not capable of processing that right now. All his attention is on Lilith and the horribly illustrated Seven Dwarves, the chef peeling one hand from his rolling pin, grabbing his bag and pulling out a padded white jacket (ha, not that kind) from inside it. Chef's whites, not really good for much other than helping shield him from the heat of ovens and hobs, but he slowly works his arm, twisting the thick fabric around it as if to use as a shield against something that does not mind being set on fire therefore is probably hot.

"Go away," he hisses at the creepy things, staring at the closest one, rolling pin raised slightly in an obvious threat. "She's not healing anyone today." Strong words from someone who is still behind the table and behind Lilith, he still hasn't moved from there yet.

Lilith has a terrible suspicion that disturbing the piles of ash after all that smearing darkness from smoke and touch on the desk surface will coalesce into something, she really does. Because things aren't that easy, are they? She looks terribly suspicious but the second those things go falling into collapse of ash, she starts to panic like they're going to reform on their own. Suddenly, coughing and choking with a hand held at her ribcage, she turns to look at Corey pointedly, he's strong with it, she knows it deep down.

And it's not fire she's talking about when she gives the desperate command in a hurry to try and keep those things from reforming, begging the young man as she seems to be on the verge of helpless, furious smarting tears, "Blow."

Well that's just great, now instead of seven lurching monstrosities, there are piles of ash and stains everywhere. Pause. Actually that is great, until Lilith starts coughing and choking, and then Corey looks down at her, frozen again for a moment. Blow? This isn't cocaine, or at least he hopes not. Certainly it's more ashy than powdery, and so he interprets the word as a command, an order.

Unfortunately, the strangling hold of fear crushes down on him and when he gestures at the piles of ash, they're slow to scatter, the mounds exploding in little puffs like somebody blowing on a dandelion head. Eventually, he does manage to scatter the ashes sufficiently that hopefully nothing will reform, but then he's looking back at Lilith, expression pained, not understanding what he can do for her.

Lilith stops the tears short with Corey looking at her and grits her teeth to stop coughing and keep herself together when her eyes snap back to the piles of ash blowing into scatter and mess and muss. She gags some with the smell of it remaining, though, then after hearing the noise from the shop floor and that distant car alarm, she flings the back door open with desperate turn to hang out of it after making paranoid survey. While hanging there pulling desperately for air, she starts to gush to Corey with a bunch of rambling assurances, "It's okay. They left. There's more. But they left. There's more. Oh fuck. Oh fuck my life, that could have... there were so many, we could have..."

She shakes her head some at Corey, still together, more or less, despite the rambling and rattled and terrified state of her. Mostly she's just trying to not cry, because she's starting to piece something together finally turning to look at him, "Are you okay?" Her eyes take a roaming to look at the aftermath and all the marking the incident left behind with a certain sense of nausea and dread on her features.

Slowly, very slowly, Corey begins to relax, as nothing else moves other than Lilith. He's breathing shallowly, his skin pale, clammy with sweat, bits of ash sticking to his one bare arm. Gradually he lets the chef's whites drop from one arm, the rolling pin set down on the table, and he focuses on the demoness with a stark, guilt-filled expression. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I just-.. I couldn't.." he tries to explain, words failing the usually fairly charming young man. "They-.. what.. what were they? What were they doing in your attic?"

"No. No. No. I did that. I did that. I made them come. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be around me. No one should." Then she's ranting at the damn universe and the air itself as she yells out of the door, like someone's out there listening, somewhere, "How dare I try to feel good and help! How dare I make things right when they're broken! Pay the fucking prices, Lilith, isn't that how it goes? Isn't that what they said?" Actually, kind of, yes, that is what they said and implied by their very presence, and the more that sinks into the woman, the less guilty and sorry and sympathetic she feels while looking at Corey. She looks mad that he's there, she looks furious over the realization that something she made good is being turned into fear and terror because...

Behind all that rage, behind all that bitter fury about her life being so fucking unfair, about shining so goddamn bright... that's what she is. Terrified. Terrified to bring that on herself again, and it just infuriates her more. And to bring it on others just because she wants to be around people again and not shut them out? Guilt, yes. But more and more bitter anger is behind that.

This is what happens when the walls come down. You endanger everyone. You were made to break.

The ceiling starts to rattle. The desk starts to crack. The portions of darkness are the fracture points when the first cracks start to form, terrible power rolling off of Lilith to destroy as she steps back in through the doorway to look at the residual carnage. Then while standing in the middle of it, she literally starts to tear it all down and apart around her. The desk snaps and shatters into pieces. The ceiling drywall where it's all stained with soot and ash and smoke starts to crumble and fall in chunks, to hazard levels. Luckily the wood frame and actual concrete for the floor above stays intact, but the insulation and everything between starts to fall out in so many tiny pieces of float, like feathers among the chunks of solid ceiling that are falling. And when the desk breaks, it doesn't just break, it blows apart.

Something that Lilith made good was seriously scared of the seven dwarves, yes. Now? Corey is scared of Lilith, and rightly so. As things start breaking around her, shattering under the force of her rage, the chef curls up into a ball on the ground, throwing out waves of kinetic force to just shove things away from him. There's no finesse, no fine tuning, things are flung in the direction of 'away' without much care for where they go.

By the time the ceiling begins to crumble down on them, Corey is foetal, arms covering his head, responding in just the most basic of ways to protect himself. Get it away, get it away. More pushing, probably pushing against Lils as much as the furniture and debris.

Lilith is knocked off kilter into a bookshelf by the force of all Corey's pushing, and it seems to jar her back into herself after letting out all that rage in a very destructive sense, but at least it wasn't bloody or bone crushing and visceral in other ways. But when she stops and jolts into it, even though the debris seemed to shatter and fall around her, a big chunk of ceiling surfacing falls from where it landed on top of the furniture to straight knock her upside the head. That pain is the real wake up call to keep her from breaking that shelving and who knows what come next. A lot of the debris is shoved to scrape at her legs at the opposite side now from where the man is curled and pushing in that psychic force way to protect himself with overwhelm and instinct.

Somehow, though, she stays standing and though woozy with pain jolt from the sudden knock on the head... Lilith stares a little forlornly at Corey before speaking lowly, the room full of ash and soot and residual smoke and ceiling dust in a sudden kind of loud silence when things are still, her hair all dusted paler by it, "Corey..." Then she just deflates entirely, hand still on the bookcase to keep balance standing while she breathes, rapid and shallow, sounding hollow after the intent call of his name to rouse him, "... I tried to warn you. But it's never enough."

The sound of Lilith's voice penetrates Corey's shell-shocked brain enough that he stops the pushing, but he remains curled up. No amount of prodding or talking gets a response out of him for a solid minute, before he takes a breath and uncurls, standing, shakily gathering his jacket and his rolling pin and his bag. The pawn shop owner is given a blank look, the chef unresponsive to anything else she might say, any gesture she might make, simply turning and leaving.